Incarcerated Women’s Perceptions of the Model Correctional Officer

• In Event: Role and View of Correctional Officers

Abstract

Research has consistently found that correctional officers experience job stress and burnout. Role conflict, a predictor of job stress for correctional officers, has been linked with officers’ attitudes toward inmates. However, little is known about prisoners’ perceptions of correctional officers’ role. Using in-depth interviews with a random selection of sixty women incarcerated in a Midwestern prison, the current study explores the factors that shape incarcerated women’s perceptions of the model correctional officer and the level of difficulty they perceive officers have in achieving it.

Author

• Kimberly Bender, University of Michigan Flint