WITNESS
Dr. Robert P. Delprino is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Buffalo State College S.U.N.Y. where he has been awarded the President's award for excellence in teaching. He has also served as Visiting Fellow with the National Institute of Justice of the U.S. Department of Justice. He earned his doctorate in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from Old Dominion University and masters degree in Forensic Psychology from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice C.U.N.Y.
Dr. Delprino has served as an employee assistance program coordinator for the New York State EAP and as a critical incident stress debriefer with the Western New York Stress Reduction Program. He has organized training programs and conducted research in the areas of law enforcement family support and law enforcement psychological services. In addition he has served as a principal investigator for several NIJ grant awards for corrections and law enforcement family support programs. Currently Dr. Delprino is developing the Institute for Crisis Intervention and Family Support. The goal of the Institute is to offer support to emergency service personnel and their families through a collaboration of community resources to respond to cope with and heal from a crisis.
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STATEMENT
Working in corrections can be very challenging, and the job of a correctional officer is inherently stressful. Those who choose a career as a correctional officer face a number of issues not typically found in other occupations. These issues may include shift work, understaffing, threat of assault, and a corrections public image. These factors do not only affect the officer but they may have a ripple effect that can result in negative consequences for the officer's family members as well as the organization.
… A survey conducted by the National Institute of Justice as part of the Corrections and Law Enforcement Family Support (CLEFS) Program served as a benchmark of programs currently used by correctional agencies on a national level. …It was reported that 71.3% of officers that leave do so in the first two years of employment. It is interesting that of the 30 categorized reasons given as to why officers leave the organization, stress and family considerations, while in the top ten, were not offered as the primary reasons. It was reported that financial consideration, retirement, work hours, overtime, relocation, shifts, and lack of career opportunities played a greater role in officers' decisions to leave. These reasons represent organizational issues that could be addressed through the implementation of formal career development programs, job enrichment programs or by giving employees some discretion in the hours they work. Research supports the notion that relatively simple actions by the organization can reduce stress experienced by the officer.…
Excerpted from a written statement submitted to the Commission
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Note: Some witnesses submitted documents in addition to the written statement they prepared for the hearing. In most cases, those documents are not available on the Commission's web site.
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