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Occupational Tedium Among Prison Officers

NCJ Number
82573
Journal
Criminal Justice and Behavior Volume: 9 Issue: 1 Dated: (March 1982) Pages: 79-99
Author(s)
B Shamir; A Drory
Date Published
1982
Length
21 pages
Annotation
This study describes sources of occupational stress in the prison officer's job and investigates their relationships with tedium - defined as a general experience of physical, emotional, and attitudinal exhaustion.
Abstract
Custodial personnel from four maximum security Israeli prisons participated in the study (N = 201). The measured sources of stress include role conflicts of several types, fear and danger, role overload, role ambiguity, job scope, working conditions, and several types of social support. The variables making the largest unique contributions to the variance in tedium are role overload, management support, and societal support. The relationships between job tenure, sources of stress, and tedium are also explored, and the practical implications of the findings are discussed. (Publisher abstract)