People who dislike their jobs may use sick leave to escape, even if they are not legitimately using sick leave. Likewise, those employees who have not bonded to the organization may give little thought to calling in sick for illegitimate reasons so as to meet their needs, whether or not their absences cause problems for the organization. Therefore, it appears that correctional workers who dislike their jobs and have little loyalty to the organization are probably more likely to be absent because of avoidable reasons. In addition, prolonged exposure to job stress can lead to medical problems, and many medical problems require the use of sick leave. Thus, job stress is probably linked to both unavoidable and avoidable correctional staff absenteeism. Interestingly, job involvement did not have a significant correlation with absenteeism. Work attendance is a vital element of managing the productivity of any organization. Like in any other field, absenteeism is costly and disruptive for correctional institutions. This exploratory study theorized that job stress, job involvement, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment would have significant associations with both absenteeism views and actual absenteeism. This article presents the results of this study which surveyed the staff at a midwestern maximum-security correctional facility. The facility maintained a staff of 450 employees responsible for the care and custody of about 1,300 inmates. Tables, references