DOI: 10.3886/icpsr08684.v1
title: Women Correctional Officers in California, 1979
title: Version 1

description: This study examined women correctional officers working in the 11 institutions for men operated by the California Department of Corrections in 1979. For Part 1, Census, researchers conducted a census of all 386 female correctional officers working in these institutions to collect demographic characteristics and baseline data. For Parts 2 (Staff) and 3 (Inmate), a survey was administered to staff and inmates asking their opinions about differences in performance between male and female correctional officers. Part 4, Profile, contains demographic and background data for the officers participating in the Part 2 survey. For Parts 5 (Female) and 6 (Male), researchers gathered job performance data for female correctional officers in 7 of the 11 institutions, as well as a matched sample of male correctional officers. Variables in Parts 1 and 4-6 include demographic information such as age, ethnicity, marital status, number of children, and educational and occupational history. Other variables measure attributes such as age, weight, and height, and record career information such as date and location of permanent assignment as a correctional officer, any breaks in service, and other criminal justice work experience. Additional variables in Parts 5 and 6 include job performance measures, such as ratings on skills, knowledge, work habits, learning ability, overall work habits, quality and quantity of work, and commendations. Parts 2 and 3 present information on staff and inmate evaluations of male and female correctional officers performing specific roles, such as control work officer, yard officer, or security squad officer. Additional variables include opinions on how well male and female officers handled emergency situations, maintained control under stress, and used firearms when necessary. Questions were also asked about whether inmates' or officers' safety was endangered with female officers, whether women should be hired as correctional officers, and whether female officers were gaining acceptance in correctional facilities.
description: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection: Standardized missing values.; Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes..
description: Datasets: 
 
 DS0: Study-Level Files 
 DS1: Census 
 DS2: Staff 
 DS3: Inmate 
 DS4: Profile 
 DS5: Female 
 DS6: Male
description: Male and female correctional officers and male felons in 11 California male inmate institutions.
description: Part 1 was a department-wide census of every female correctional officer working in 11 California male inmate institutions. For Parts 2 and 4, officer survey responses and profile data were collected from male and female correctional officers in seven institutions. A proportionate stratified random sample was conducted, using the seniority listing of correctional officers. The sample was stratified by sex and institution to be representative of all correctional officers in California. Within each strata, 10 percent of the officers were selected. For Part 3, survey responses were gathered from structured attitude questionnaires given to 400 inmates from 7 institutions. The selection was made from 75 percent of the mainline inmates out of a population of 25,838 male felons. For Parts 5 and 6, job performance data from 168 female correctional officers were matched (using age and job tenure) with 168 male correctional officers. Only 7 of the 11 institutions were used, since 4 of the institutions employed less than 24 female officers. For this reason, 24 women and 24 men were selected from each of these 7 institutions. For those institutions employing more than 24 women officers, a random-digit table was used to select 24 women.