Beyond Individual Resilience: Organizational Support, Psychosocial Vulnerabilities, and Mental Health Outcomes Among Correctional Officers—A Scoping Review

Correctional officers report high rates of mental disorders, and building individual resilience is increasingly proposed as the remedy. This scoping review examined how resilience and organizational support are conceptualized, measured, and related to correctional officers’ mental health across the continuum from distress to well-being. Following the PRISMA-ScR guidelines, we searched APA PsycInfo, Web of Science, and PubMed for peer-reviewed studies in English, Italian, and Spanish; 21 primary studies from seven countries were included. Resilience was directly examined in six studies, measured with validated instruments in only four, and conceptualized inconsistently across them. Organizational factors were charted in every study: understaffing, work–family conflict, and stigmatizing workplace cultures emerged as consistent risks, while organizational and peer support were the most consistent protective factors; in national surveys, organizational stressors outweighed operational trauma exposure. Positive outcomes were measured in only two studies. Findings support shifting the focus from individual resilience training toward modifiable organizational conditions—staffing, leadership, culture, and accessible correctional-specific support.