Occupational Stressors among Federal Correctional Officers Working in Different Security Levels

This study investigated distress and self-esteem levels of 147 federal correctional officers working in that system's six different security level institutions. The General Severity Index (GSI), a scale of the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI), was used to measure distress; the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (SES) operationalized the other dependent variable. In addition, 13 variables were used as part of a multiple regression analysis to determine a prediction equation for the two outcomes studied. Lack of participation in decision making and years of continual employment were significantly related to distress, whereas responsibility for people and role conflict were related to self-esteem. Federal correctional officers across all security levels scored in the “clinical” range on the GSI and yielded high SES scores. Differences among security levels were not significant.