Date on Master's Thesis/Doctoral Dissertation

5-2016

Document Type

Doctoral Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph. D.

Department

Criminal Justice

Degree Program

Criminal Justice, PhD

Committee Chair

Tewksbury, Richard

Committee Co-Chair (if applicable)

Roelfs, David

Committee Member

Roelfs, David

Committee Member

Reed, John

Committee Member

Hughes, Tom

Author's Keywords

officer health and wellness; probation parole health and wellness; officer stress; probation parole officer stress; law enforcement performance; law enforcement professionalism

Abstract

This dissertation is a comparison study of health and wellness outcomes for a sample of law enforcement officers and a sample of community corrections professionals within the same state. As such, it is the first attempt to determine and compare the independent variables which are significant predictors of law enforcement officer and community corrections professionals’ health and wellness for criminal justice employees working in the same context. Data used in the research was gathered from nearly identical health and wellness surveys distributed to the sample of law enforcement officers and the sample of community corrections professionals. Logistic, negative binomial, and Poisson regression analyses were performed to determine which independent variables are significant predictors of officer and professionals’ health and wellness outcomes. Results show several factors are significant predictors of both officer and professionals’ health and wellness, with law enforcement organizational factors being the most frequent predictors of law enforcement health and wellness. Demographic variables are the most frequent significant predictors of professionals’ health and wellness. It is concluded that variables predictive of officer and professionals’ health and wellness differ, necessitating different policy approaches designed to address issues associated with officer and professionals’ health and wellness.

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