Who Are Correctional Officers? (This post is to lay the groundwork for my next post).

■ 77.7% male, 22.3% female ■ 69.5% white, 20.8% black, 5.7% Hispanic 

■ 80.5% are between the ages of 30 – 44 

■ 63.9% have some college experience,25% have a college degree, 19% Bachelors, 4.5% Masters, 1.5% Ph.D. 

■ Correctional Officers (CO’s) have the second highest mortality rate of any occupation.

■ 33.5% of all assaults in prisons and jails are committed by inmates against staff. 

■ A CO’s 58th birthday, on average, is their last. 

■ A CO will be seriously assaulted at least twice in a 20 year career. 

■ On average a CO will live only 18 months after retirement. 

■ CO’s have a 39% higher suicide rate than any other occupation, 

■ And have a higher divorce and substance abuse rates then the general population. 

Sources: “Stress Management for the Professional Correctional Officer”, Donald Steele, Ph.D., Steele Publishing 2001 “Corrections Yearbook 2000, 2002”, Criminal Justice Institute, Middletown, CT “Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics 2003”, Bureau of Justice Statistics, 31st edition, NCJ 208756 “Suicide Risk Among Correctional Officers”, Archives of Suicide Research, Stack, S.J., & Tsoudis, O. 1997 Metropolitan Life Actuarial Statistics, 1998 Society of Actuaries, 1994