Magnitude and Source of General and Occupation-Specific Stress Among Police and Correctional Officers

Stress has been a dominant theme in the police literature, but most past research has chosen to focus on the nature of Stressors affecting police work. Few studies have compared police with other occupations on the dimension of magnitude of stress. In most cases, comparative investigations have presented findings on the consequences of stress rather than on the magnitude or source of the stress itself. This article reports the results of a comparison of police officers with prison guards on double operationalizations of stress. In addition, 37 job related Stressors (sources of stress) potentially affecting police officers and prison guards were compared. Data analysis reveals that police officers and guards do not differ significantly in magnitude either of “general” or of “occupation-specific” stress. However, officers and guards are found to differ on the sources of occupation-specific stress they experience.