Correctional officers: support, commitment and ethnicity.

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Correctional officers: support, commitment and ethnicity.

It is no secret that the corrections field has historically experienced high turnover among its officers. According to an article published in Corrections Today, the average turnover rate among correctional officers nationally in 2000 was 16.1 percent, up from 12.6 percent in 1995 (Lommel, 2004). In some states, the turnover rate among Correctional officers is much higher than the national industry average; Arizona, Idaho, Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia are just five examples.

According to a January 2006 interview with the director of Arizona's Department of Corrections, "Turnover has been in the 25 percent range for a long time, and it is higher than that now. ... In fiscal year 2005 it rose to 27.5 percent" (The Arizona Republic, 2006). In Idaho, the 2005 turnover rate for correctional officers was 23.7 percent (Idaho DOC, 2006) and in 2004 the Kentucky DOC "hired 627 new correctional officers and experienced a turnover of 27.8 percent" (Kentucky DOC, 2005). In 2003, Tennessee experienced a 23.6 percent turnover of its correctional officers, with the turnover rate for officers with less than a year of experience being 53.6 percent (Demsky, 2004). Finally, in 2000 and 2001, the turnover rate for all Virginia DOC officers with less than one year of tenure was 30.5 percent. In 2002, 2003 and 2004, the turnover rate for all correctional officers in the agency was 12.6 percent, 13.9 percent and 15.4 percent, respectively (Virginia DOC, 2003). Due to recent changes in the position titles of correctional officers, the Virginia DOC's database can no longer distinguish first-year officers from others.

These figures and the national turnover averages are especially worrisome because the U.S. Department of Labor (2004) predicts that the need for correctional officers will "grow faster than the average for all occupations through 2012, as additional officers are hired to supervise and control a growing inmate population." In addition, facilities that have a shortage of correctional officers often experience overtime demands that result in a host of other related issues such...

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