Correctional Officer Turnover Intentions and Mental Illness Symptom: Testing the Potential Confounding Effects of Resilience

• Published in: Psychology, public policy, and law public policy, and law, 2024-02, Vol.30 (1), p.33-47
• Main Authors: Ferdik, Frank, Pica, Emily
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Corrections Officers; Employee Turnover; Female; Human; Intention; Male; Mental Disorders; Mentally Ill Offenders; Prisons; Resilience (Psychological); Symptoms
• ISSN: 1076-8971; 1939-1528
• DOI: 10.1037/law0000384

Correctional officers (COs) working in county-level jails are shouldered with important responsibilities designed to maintain institutional order. Despite the invaluable work they perform, an alarming number of officers voluntarily resign from their position shortly following their initial hire date, creating severe problems for the facilities they now leave behind. Although a number of studies have researched factors affecting officer turnover intent, very few have specifically tested whether officers exhibiting signs of mental illness symptoms are more likely to want to resign. Adding to this, currently no study has examined whether resilience confounds the effects of mental illness symptoms on officer resignation intentions. Questionnaire data were collected from a statewide population of county jail officers working throughout TN (N = 1,517) to test whether officers exhibiting symptoms of mental illness were more likely to want to resign and whether these relationships were confounded by resilience. Consistent with hypothesized expectations, officers who scored higher on clinical screening measures for symptoms of mental illness signaled a greater desire to want to quit their job. These relationships were relegated to a statistically non-significant status once resilience was entered into the regression model. Supplementary analyses supported our confounding hypothesis since resilience negatively predicted all five screening measures for mental illness symptoms. Theoretical and policy implications are discussed.