The “Correctional Worker Concerns” Questionnaire

Are you concerned that YOU and/or OTHER EMPLOYEES at your correctional agency:

1. Are negative and pessimistic?
2. Are irritable and impatient?
3. Habitually react with anger?
4. Have gained a considerable amount of weight since hiring on in corrections?
5. Have been diagnosed with multiple health conditions since hiring on in corrections?
6. Are haunted by work-related incidents of violence, injury or death?
7. Due to the work schedule, regularly sleep less than the recommended 7-8 hours in a 24-hour period?
8. Suffer from insomnia, nightmares or other sleep disturbances?
9. Consume more alcohol than prior to hiring on in corrections?
10. Act recklessly, without seeming to think through or care about consequences?
11. Escalate rapidly during confrontations?
12. Seem to have become “hardened” and “heartless” towards others?
13. Have lost pride in the job?
14. Find no positive meaning in corrections work other than the paycheck?
15. Are counting the years to retirement?
16. Would leave the field of corrections if the same pay and/or benefits were available elsewhere?

If any of these concerns sound true for you or other corrections staff at your agency, leave us a comment and hit the submit button below. Desert Waters’ products and services can offer you suggestions to begin to tackle these issues, whether in your personal life or in your correctional agency.

Copyright © 2021 - Desert Waters Correctional Outreach, Inc.

Note: This questionnaire reflects observations stemming from our clinical, research and training  experience with correctional  staff. It is not a formal, validated scientific test, and must not be used as a diagnostic technique of any type.

Desert Waters Correctional Outreach, Inc., (DWCO) helps correctional agencies counter Corrections Fatigue in their staff by cultivating a healthier workplace climate and a more engaged workforce through targeted skill-based training and research.

The term Corrections Fatigue, coined in 2000 by DWCO’s founder, Caterina Spinaris, PhD, describes the combined and cumulative toll of three types of occupational stressors inherent to corrections work—operational stressors, organizational stressors, and traumatic stressors. Corrections Fatigue results in negative changes in corrections staff’s personality, health and functioning, and in the workplace culture.

DWCO’s signature course, “From Corrections Fatigue to Fulfillment™” received the 2016 Commercial Product of the Year Award of Excellence by the International Association of Correctional Training Personnel.