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Opening the Manager's Door: State Probation Officer Stress and Perceptions of Participation in Workplace Decision Making

NCJ Number
202330
Journal
Crime & Delinquency Volume: 49 Issue: 4 Dated: October 2003 Pages: 519-541
Author(s)
Risdon N. Slate; Terry L. Wells; W. Wesley Johnson
Date Published
October 2003
Length
23 pages
Annotation
This article examined the contributors to stress for probation officers.
Abstract
In comparison to studies on police and correctional officer stress, there is scant research on probation officer stress. Given the fact that probation officers have a great deal of unsupervised contact with offenders and growing caseloads, it is important to understand how stress affects their job performance. The authors conducted a self-report survey with 417 probation officers. The survey, which utilized a Likert-type format, focused on measuring the level of external, internal, job or task, personal, and physical stress experienced by the respondents and on identifying the contributors to that stress. Results of structural equation modeling revealed that officers’ perceptions of participation in the workplace, especially in terms of participation in decisionmaking, was a significant variable affecting job satisfaction and its influence on reported organizational and physical symptoms of stress. The results lend support for the development and use of participatory management schemas within probation work. References