Open AccessFear of infectious diseases and perceived contagion risk count as an occupational health and safety hazard: Accounts from correctional officer recruits in Canada
Author(s) -
Marcella Siqueira Cassiano,
Fatih Öztürk,
Rosemary Ricciardelli
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
journal of criminology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2633-8084
pISSN - 2633-8076
DOI - 10.1177/26338076211058250
Subject(s) - officer , hazard , distancing , occupational safety and health , perspective (graphical) , medicine , psychology , covid-19 , political science , infectious disease (medical specialty) , law , pathology , artificial intelligence , computer science , chemistry , disease , organic chemistry
Prisons are poorly ventilated confined spaces with limited physical distancing opportunities, making an environment conducive to the spread of infectious diseases. Based on empirical research with correctional officer recruits in Canada, we analyze the reasons and sources of fear, and the measures that recruits adopt to counter their fear of contagion. Our study marks an advance in the correctional work literature, which, to date, has tended to view perceived contagion risks as a workplace challenge that can be overcome with occupational skill and experience. In contrast with the existing literature, we present fear and perceived contagion risk as an “operational stress injury” that affects all correctional officers; a structural occupational health and safety problem that needs redressing from the labor policy perspective.