Acceptance of female correctional officers in institutions for men : a Canadian perspective

Abstract

Correctional officers (CO's) at five federal correctional facilities in the central prairie region of Canada were surveyed to determine their attitude toward their role as CO's and corrections in general. This study focused on the male respondents (n = 290) and their attitudes toward working with women as CO's. The purpose was to determine which individual attributes of male CO's (age, race, education or marital status) or organizational factors (working relationship, custody orientation, stress, job satisfaction, length of service, prison security level, team effort or rank) on the part of male CO's were predictive of a favorable or unfavorable attitude toward their female co-workers. Utilizing a stepwise multiple regression procedure, at a significance level of.05, it was found that custody orientation, working relationship with female CO's and level of education were the only significant factors related to male CO's attitude towards female CO's. The results of this study suggest that organizational factors are more strongly related to attitudes favorable to women correctional officers than individual attributes.