Probation Employee Job Attitudes: A Qualitative Analysis

A qualitative analysis of the comments of approximately 400 probation and parole employees to a recent questionnaire survey is presented. Workers were found to offer more negative than positive comments and many of their concerns centered on administrative and court-related problems, similar to findings about police officer job stress. Ratings of the open-ended comments of the respondents indicated significant levels of job burnout and dissatisfaction. Although quantitative indicators showed these two problems to be less prevalent, it appears that both burnout and dissatisfaction are present to some degree in the occupation. Thus, mission reform is necessary to ameliorate these job problems