Correctional Officers: What Factors Influence Work Attitudes?

Correctional officers: What factors Influence Work Attitudes?
This paper seeks to critique and analyze the article written by Mary Ann Farkas. Her article deals with research done on the work orientation of correctional officers which has been a subject of significance since officer’s attitudes influence their approach and interaction with inmates. The material highlighted in the article deals distinctively with research done on the attitudes of officer’s towards inmates and the basis of these attitudes providing a summary of the research done. There was an examination on the influence of the individuals and organizational factors and the implications of these findings for correctional management.
As an academia student it is my view that this article did a good job in outlining its objective. The introduction gave an adequate account that clearly outlined the purpose of the paper giving an insight into the challenges faced by the correction officer and some of the contributing factors that are the root causes behind conducting this type of research.
The author then proceeded to explain each variable with relation to the identified topic of discussion. What is noteworthy was for every variable listed under the relevant researches which were conducted, the particular variable was listed with respective findings. The author also compared her findings and identified the shortcomings or positives as necessary. The only downside to this was the methodology for the researches listed was not given in every instance but there was mention that the attitudinal surveys were used.
In sum in the author’s discussion she gave relevant commentary suggestions and criticism of the overall topic. It was noted that most of the researches were quantitative in nature and one of the disadvantages of this type of research method is that the findings are not always a true representation of the actual problem. A suggestion was made by the author to supplement quantitative method with the use of qualitative method to get a more accurate picture or analysis. This has always been a concern in research and the author highlighted that when the in depth interview technique was used its findings yielded better results. Overall the author found that the results of many of the studies to be confusing with mixed conclusion and this is a result of the methodology used which was primarily quantitative. I am in full agreement of the author’s suggestion that the use of in depth interviews and observation and any other qualitative method that may apply to the research. The topic of research is one that the use quantitative methods no matter how much you expand the sample size cannot give an accurate picture.