Discussion Post

Correctional officers (COs) represent the backbone of the corrections system since they are tasked with numerous demands designed to maintain institutional safety. While working under perilous conditions that can threaten their wellness, officers are required to arbitrate disputes between incarcerated persons, search cells for contraband, respond to sometimes conflicting administrative orders, and deliver vital rehabilitative services to the custodial population. Until recently, sparse academic attention was devoted to the profession of correctional officer. Few scholars, practitioners, or other interested stakeholders devoted much thought to this job, or the challenges of it. Fortunately, this has changed in recent years as a growing number of studies have examined the professional hurdles facing COs, how they respond to them, and how this job can affect their well-being. With this backdrop in mind, you will be required to retrieve, download, and read carefully the following three peer-reviewed articles covering essential topics related to the correctional officer profession: Ferdik, F.V. (2018). Correctional officer risk perceptions and professional orientations: Examining linkages between the two. Criminal Justice and Behavior. 4, pp. 188-233. Ferdik, F.V., & Smith, H.P. (2015). Maximum security correctional officers: An exploratory investigation into their social bases of power. American Journal of Criminal Justice. 21, pp. 88-133. Ferdik, F.V., Smith, H.P. & Applegate, B. (2014). The role of emotional dissonance and job desirability in predicting correctional officer turnover intentions. Criminal Justice Studies. 39, pp. 1-30. Each article captures a unique dimension of the correctional officer workforce, and your job for this forum will be to carefully read each one, summarize their main findings, and propose strategies for what can be done to improve the professional working conditions of COs. Just to provide some guidance, the first two articles reference the professional ideologies and behavioral control strategies officers endorse. In reading those articles, you will be asked to identify what preferred punishment philosophy was advocated for by COs, and what power base they relied upon to control unruly custodial residents. The third and final article overviews the salient factors contributing to officer desires to seek alternate employment. Further, as part of your assignment, you will need to: A)-Include actual, PDF copies of the article(s) as part of your submission. You may upload them within the forum itself; B)-Cite a direct sentence from the required CRJ-5150 textbook in your response that will supplement what you wrote on this topic. Immediately next to the cited sentence in parentheses, provide the precise page number, line number, and paragraph number, along with the location of this sentence on the page. Use this direct quotation from the book, again, to supplement what you write in regards to the summary of your article(s). C)-Cite at least one direct sentence from at least ONE article you retrieve for this post, and next to the cited sentence in parentheses, provide the precise page number, line number, and paragraph number, along with the location of this sentence on the page. Again, your task for this forum will be to read carefully each assigned article, synthesize their main findings, and then suggest means by which to improve the CO job. Your final response to this discussion board should range between 500 and 600 words. This is a strictly enforced maximum word count. Every word over will result in a point deduction. After responding to the discussion forum, please read the posts of at least two (2) other classmates, and comment on them