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The primary purpose of the current study was to assess the role of organizational justice in understanding prison staff job stress. Specifically, the authors surveyed 322 correctional employees across two prisons located in Guangzhou, China to explore the effects of distributive, procedural, informational, and interpersonal justice on work stress. Results from ordinary least squares analysis revealed significant contributions from three dimensions of organizational justice in explaining stress from work among prison workers. Prison personnel who had higher perceptions of interpersonal, distributive, and procedural justice in the organization were less likely to report being stressed. In addition, men were more likely to report higher levels of work tension than women.

Officers are a valuable resource for prisons across the globe. Working in corrections is a demanding job with a higher-than-average risk of job burnout. Most prison burnout studies have focused on staff working in Western prisons, particularly those in the U.S. These studies have generally found an association between work attitudes and burnout among prison officers. However, a key question is whether the associations are universal or contextual, varying by nation . The current study examined the link between the major work attitudes of job involvement, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment and the burnout dimensions of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and feeling ineffective at work among staff at two Chinese prisons. According to the results of ordinary least squares multivariate regression tests, job involvement, and job satisfaction had significant negative effects on emotional exhaustion, but commitment did not. Only job involvement had significant negative effects on depersonalization. Job involvement and organizational commitment had significant negative effects on feeling ineffective, while job satisfaction had nonsignificant effects. The results indicate that the major work attitudes are negatively linked to job burnout for the studied Chinese prison staff; efforts should be undertaken to build these work attitudes to reduce burnout since burnout is linked to negative consequences for officers, inmates, and the prison. Based on previous research and current findings, some of the effects of work attitudes appear to be universal, and others appear to be contextual.

The bulk of the limited research on prison staff life satisfaction has been conducted in Western nations, particularly in the U.S., and only two studies have explored the relationship between organizational justice and life satisfaction, both of which only examined two of the four dimensions of justice. The current study investigated how all four dimensions of organizational justice (informational, interpersonal, distributive, and procedural) were related to life satisfaction among Chinese prison staff. The ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analysis indicated that informational, procedural, and distributive justice had significant positive effects on life satisfaction. Interpersonal justice had an insignificant effect.

Trust is an essential component of effective organizations and may be especially important in corrections because of the unique challenges this work environment presents. In corrections, trust in both supervisors and the administration is critical to ensuring the safety and security of staff, inmates, and the community. Previous research has revealed important implications of organizational trust, but less is known about the workplace factors that shape organizational trust. Scholars have divided these workplace factors into job demands and job resources. Using data from 322 correctional staff (both custodial and non-custodial staff) working at a large prison in the Southern United States, this study tested the job demands-resources model on two types of organizational trust – supervisor trust and administration trust. Specifically, we examined three job demands – role ambiguity, fear of being victimized at work, and role overload – and three job resources – job variety, quality training, and autonomy. Ordinary Least Squares regression results showed that workplace variables predicted both types of organizational trust and were generally stronger predictors than were personal attributes. Moreover, job resources played a greater role than job demands in shaping both supervisor and administration trust.

When Boko Haram insurgents attacked the United Nations Headquarters in Abuja on August 26, 2009, Nigerians’ reactions were similar to U.S. reactions to al-Qaida’s September 11, 2001 attacks on World Trade Center and Pentagon. The aftermaths of these terrorist incidents caused the governments of both countries to devote enormous resources to their counterterrorism policies and efforts. This study aims to explore how social orientations and environment influence individuals’ views, attitudes, and perceptions on terrorism. Using a convenience sampling technique, 274 Nigerian and 484 U.S students were surveyed. Results showed some degree of convergence and divergence. First, Nigerian participants were more likely to express stronger views on the problem of terrorism for society than their U.S. counterparts. Second, Nigerian participants were also more likely to view terrorism as more politically motivated than their U.S. counterparts. Third, nationality was highly significant in predicting views, attitudes, and perceptions. It appears culture plays a role in helping shape views on terrorism.

Appropriate supervision strategies are the backbone of community corrections. The success of community supervision is dependent upon the attitudes of both officers and offenders. Despite this, research on offenders’ attitudes toward community corrections supervision is surprisingly very limited. The current study investigated attitudes of officers and offenders toward and predictors of four different community supervision strategies based on data collected in Hubei, China, in 2103 and 2016. The study found that among demographics, community variables, and value factor, the mutual trust value factor was the most important predictor of community supervision strategies by both officers and offenders. Additional findings and policy implications are discussed.

Research examining the effect of organizational justice on the correctional environment is typically limited to its consequences on various outcomes. Absent from this body of literature is how perceptions of organizational justice are formed among correctional staff. Filling this void and using data from a Midwestern correctional facility, the current study examines the impact of instrumental communication, integration, formalization, and input into decision-making on the distributive and procedural justice perceptions of correctional staff. With the exception of integration, all organizational structure variables were significantly related to both forms of organizational justice. These findings offer correctional administrators a low cost and practical solution for enhancing organizational justice through organizational structure.

Organizational trust includes both supervisor trust and management trust. Additionally, the three main work attitudes are job involvement, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment. The objec...

Trust is a vital part of society and is critical for organizations. The main forms of organizational trust are management trust, supervisor trust, and coworker trust, each of which allows organizations to function and operate efficiently. This is particularly true for police agencies. Yet, few studies have examined how organizational trust affects police officers. The job of a police officer can be demanding, often resulting in heightened job stress. It is unclear whether organizational trust can reduce job stress or, conversely, whether low or non-existent organizational trust contributes to job stress. The current study explored the effects of management trust, supervisor trust, and coworker trust on job stress among Indian police officers, while also assessing the effects of job autonomy, views on quality training, role overload, role underload, and perceived dangerousness of the job. A sample of 827 police officers was drawn from two districts in the state of Haryana in India. Supervisor and coworker trust had statistically significant negative effects on job stress, while management trust had nonsignificant negative effects. Job autonomy and views on quality training also had significant negative effects, while perceptions of the job as dangerous and role overload had significant positive effects. Role underload had nonsignificant effects. The results indicate that building coworker and supervisor trust, increasing job autonomy, improving views on quality training, and reducing role overload and perceptions of the job as posing a risk should reduce job stress for police officers.

Studies exploring how workplace factors contribute to job stress among police officers are not rare, but studies specifically examining how work–family conflict is associated with the job involveme...

Research examining correctional staff indicates that there are far-reaching negative consequences related to job burnout, including, but not limited to, diminished physical and mental health, increased risk of substance use, and decreased job performance. One area that may contribute to correctional staff job burnout is work–family conflict, which occurs when work and home domains spill into one another, causing conflict and problems. Using a sample of Southern correctional staff, this study investigates whether the four major types of work–family conflict—time-based, strain-based, behavior-based, and family-based—influence the three recognized job burnout dimensions: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and feeling ineffective at work. The findings provide partial support for the notion that work–family conflict influences job burnout. These findings are contextualized in previous research with a full discussion of their implications.

Life satisfaction is a positive overall feeling towards one’s life and is an important factor for employees and their employers. There has been little research on life satisfaction of staff working at correctional institutions who play an important security role in the care, custody, and control of offenders. The current study explored how work environment variables are related to correctional staff life satisfaction using the Job Demands-Job Resources Model, which holds that job demands and job resources are two major categories of work environment variables. Job demands cause strain for employees, creating negative outcomes and reducing positive outcomes while job resources result in staff being productive and feeling good, increasing positive outcomes and lowering negative outcomes. The current study focused on the specific job demands of perceiving the job as dangerous, role conflict, role ambiguity, and role overload, and the job resources of instrumental communication, job autonomy, job variety, and quality of training. The data was collected from 160 completed questionnaires from all available full-time staff (N = 200) at a prison in the midwestern part of the United States. Using multivariate regression analysis, it was found that role ambiguity and role overload had negative effects on life satisfaction, and job variety and quality training had positive effects. While the effects of job demand and job resource variables differed depending on the aspect of the work environment being examined, the results overall supported the Job Demands-Job Resources Model in explaining life satisfaction.

The bulk of correctional staff life satisfaction research has focused on staff in Western nations, particularly the United States. The current study examined how workplace variables are related to ...

Views of organizational justice among correctional staff (i.e. whether they perceive that their employing organization treats them fairly) impact both staff and prisons. The two major dimensions of...

Life satisfaction is an important concept for both police and other law enforcement organizations. Past research on the spillover theory has found that higher life satisfaction results in better physical health, being more open-minded, improved effort, and longer life expectancy. The spillover theory holds what happens at work does not stay at work but spills over and affects a person’s overall life. Workplace variables, particularly job stress, job involvement, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment do not just affect people at work, but also affect people’s satisfaction with their overall lives. The current study examined how job stress, job involvement, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment were associated with life satisfaction among a sample of 827 police officers from the state of Haryana in India. In a multivariate ordinary least squares regression analysis, job stress had a significant negative effect on life satisfaction, whereas job involvement, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment had significant positive effects. The results suggest that police administrators should attempt to lower job stress and increase job involvement, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment among officers to raise their life satisfaction, which, in turn, should benefit the individual officers, the police agency, and the community being served.

Prisons depend on their employees, and staffing a prison is expensive. Approximately 80% of a prison’s budget is for staff wages and benefits. Prisons are not generally viewed as desirable places to work, thus recruiting and retaining correctional officers can be difficult. Work-related stress can negatively affect staff members’ home lives, and home stress can make an employee distracted and endangered at work. Time-, strain-, behavior-, and family-based work–family conflicts were hypothesized to impact three work attitudes (job involvement, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment) negatively. Time-based conflict had no significant effects on any of the work attitudes. Strain-based conflict had significant negative effects on job satisfaction and organizational commitment but not job involvement. Behavior-based conflict had significant negative effects on all three work attitudes. Contrary to our hypotheses, family-based conflict had significant positive effects on all three. Work–family conflict is a significant work attitude-associated stressor for correctional staff; therefore, policy recommendations to address it are made.

Private security staff play an important role in protecting society, including those who work in private prisons. Working in a private prison is a demanding job. Staff are responsible to ensure tha...

PurposePolice organizations work better when officers feel satisfied with their jobs. High job satisfaction has been linked to positive outcomes for both officers and police organizations. Perceived fairness of transfers should be positively associated with job satisfaction. There has been little research in this area, and none of the limited past studies have studied this association among Pakistani police officers.Design/methodology/approachData for the study comes from a survey of 550 officers working in the Lahore police stations in Punjab, Pakistan.FindingsAfter controlling for location, work assignment, rank, length of service, marital status, age and educational level, the strongest predictor of job satisfaction was perceived fairness in transfers, an important aspect of policing in Pakistan.Research limitations/implicationsThis was a single exploratory study that only measured perceived fairness of transfers. There is a need for additional studies. Further, broader measures of organizational fairness should be used in future studies.Practical implicationsPolice administrators should ask staff why they perceive transfers as fair or not and what can be done to improve their perceptions.Originality/valueThere has been little research on police in Pakistan and the current study examined perceptions of fairness in terms of transfers with the job satisfaction among police officers in Pakistan.

The current study explored how three key work environment variables – input into decision-making, instrumental communication, and perceived quality of supervision – affected views of distributive a...

The current study sets out to examine the effects of job demands and job resources on the job involvement of Nigerian correctional services staff. Job demands make the job more difficult and reduce...

Organizational justice is important for most employees. Distributive justice (fairness of outcomes) and procedural justice (fairness of processes to reach outcomes) are two major dimensions of orga...

Staff are essential to running safe and humane correctional institutions. To this end, staff sometimes need to report coworker misconduct. Doing so requires a propensity to engage in whistleblowing, a topic that has received very little attention in the criminal justice literature. Using results from the Work Experiences Questionnaire (WEQ), an instrument designed to measure various features of correctional work environments, we found several exploratory variables to be significantly associated with individual whistleblowing propensity. Specifically, male staff, White staff, and staff with college degrees had higher propensity scores. Increases in job satisfaction and organizational whistleblowing propensity were also related to greater willingness to report wrongdoing, whereas affective organizational commitment had a negative effect. To the extent replicated, such findings can guide policy and practice concerning the reporting of correctional staff wrongdoing.

Staff are the most vital resource for any correctional facility. As corrections is a very expensive budget item in the U.S., finding and keeping dedicated employees is essential. Organizational com...

Understanding the factors that lead to correctional officer (CO) turnover intent is vital. Using a gendered career stage model, this study focused on male and female CO similarities and differences in workplace variable effects on turnover intent across career stages. The results indicated that organizational commitment was a consistent predictor of turnover intent for all correctional officers at all career stages, and, at various career stages, quality of supervision, coworker support, and safety concerns affected both males and females. Male officers were more likely to leave at all career stages, with the impact of job stress and role ambiguity influencing male turnover intent.

Considerable empirical research has shown that work-family conflict has a negative effect on the job satisfaction and organizational commitment of United States correctional staff. This study is the first to examine the effect of work-family conflict on job satisfaction and organizational commitment for staff at Chinese prisons. Findings from ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analyses indicated that strain-based conflict, behavior-based conflict and family-on-work conflict had negative effects on the job satisfaction of Chinese prison staff. Also, strain-based conflict and behavior-based conflict had negative effects on organizational commitment. Overall, the results support the conclusion that work-family conflict was generally perceived as stressful by Chinese prison staff and negatively impacted their job satisfaction and organizational commitment, as has been found among United States staff.

Trust is crucial to the proper functioning of organizations. Trust has been examined at many levels, and researchers have recently expanded the study of trust to include areas ranging from the neur...

Correctional staff are expensive, and they perform the most critical and central duty within the facility: the care and custody of inmates. Improving the job satisfaction and organizational commitm...

While the issue of trust is theoretically essential for the effective operation of correctional organizations, few researchers have examined how the different types of trust are related to salient outcomes for staff. In this study, we examined the effects of coworker, supervisor, and management trust on the job involvement, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment of 322 Southern U.S. correctional staff. The types of workplace trust, however, varied in their effects. Specifically, multivariate analysis indicated only management trust had a significant positive effect on job involvement, but both coworker trust and management trust had significant positive effects on job satisfaction, whereas both supervisor trust and management trust had significant positive effects on organizational commitment. The current findings support the overall contention that workplace trust plays an important role in shaping prison staff job involvement, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment. The results underscore the need for improving perceptions of trust in the workplace, particularly management trust.

Employees’ positive perceptions of organizational justice are crucial to the successful operation of correctional institutions. Employees who perceive their employer treats them justly and fairly report less job-related stress and happier home lives. Organizational justice has two primary components – procedural and distributive justice – that have been examined relative to job satisfaction and job performance. The current study builds on the existing literature and examines the effects that perceptions of procedural and distributive justice have on the strain-based form of work-family conflict. Specifically, the goal of this study is to determine whether these two forms of justice were related to the strain that correctional employees bring home with them. Data collected from a large Southern correctional institution indicate that perceptions of procedural justice related significantly to reported levels of the strain-based form of work-family conflict and that staff with the highest perceptions of procedural justice reported the lowest levels of strain-based work-family conflict. This did not hold true for distributive justice, however, which was found to be statistically unrelated to work-family strain.

In the United States, institutional corrections is a major undertaking that requires substantial financial resources. Correctional staff are the essential element to ensuring the safety and security of these institutions, which house approximately 2.2 million adults. Thus, it is invaluable to explore work environment variables that contribute to their success. One area that has received scant attention is staff views of inmate medical care and their effect on job involvement and organizational commitment. This study focused on the effects of views concerning the proper handling of inmate infectious diseases, the quality of medical care provided to inmates, the timeliness of the responses to inmate medical needs, turnover of medical staff, and inmate medical privacy rights. Results indicate that proper handling of inmate infectious diseases and quality of medical care positively increase job involvement and organizational commitment.

Police operate around the world. Police organizations are tasked with a wide variety of duties, and successful police organizations need committed officers. The three main forms of organizational commitment are affective, normative, and continuance commitment. This study examined the relationship of overall job satisfaction and facet job satisfaction (transfers, pay, promotions, and supervision) on affective, normative, and continuance commitment among 550 officers working in the operations and investigation wings of the Lahore Police Stations in Punjab, Pakistan. Based on multivariate ordinary least squares (OLS) regression results, overall job satisfaction and facet satisfaction with transfers, pay, and supervision had significant positive effects on affective and normative commitment and negative associations with continuance commitment. Satisfaction with promotions, however, had a negative relationship with affective and normative commitment and a positive association with continuance commitment.

In private correctional institutions, staff are an important resource, since they are tasked with a myriad of duties necessary to operate a humane, safe, and secure facility. As political demands f...

Organisational commitment is an important concept in the field of corrections. The current study examined how workplace variables affected commitment among Nigerian correctional staff and compared ...

Some correctional officers end their careers in disgrace when they engage in acts of cruelty against the very inmates they are paid to protect. In the present study, we administered 501 questionnai...

Only one study among U.S. prison staff has explored the effects of work-family conflict and job burnout. To replicate the research to determine whether the results vary by nation, this study examined the effects of four types of work-family conflict (strain-based, time-based, behavior-based and family-based conflict) on three dimensions of job burnout (emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and feeling ineffective at work) among Nigerian correctional staff. Strain- and behavior-based conflict had significant positive effects on emotional exhaustion, but time- and family-based conflict did not. Family-based conflict was the only type of domain spillover with significant positive effects on depersonalization. Behavior-based conflict was the only type of work-family conflict with significant positive effects on feeling ineffective at work. Time-based and strain-based conflict were highly related to one another, which was attributed to time-based conflict being a contributor to strain-based conflict for Nigerian prison staff.

Many correctional officers who work in close proximity with inmates are at a heightened risk of experiencing feelings of psychological distress. We analyzed 501 surveys collected from correctional officers within the Texas Department of Criminal Justice to identify characteristics of officers who are likely to exhibit signs of depression. Our findings reveal that female officers, as well as officers who work in higher custody levels, are more likely than other officers to report higher levels of depressive symptomatology. We also found that officers who experienced high levels of self-reported job-related stress were more likely to suffer from depression. Officers with attitudes favorable to the mistreatment of inmates also reported higher levels of depression. Officers who perceived their coworkers were engaging in boundary violations were no more or less likely to exhibit signs of depression. Given these findings, we conclude that organizational and supervisory support, coupled with positive incentives and employee assistance programs, may help mitigate the risks of depression for correctional officers, thereby making these salient staff more efficient and effective in the prison workplace.

This preliminary study investigates the efficacy of the SPARK Mentoring Program, a mental health education intervention grounded the psycho-spiritual Principles of Universal Mind, Consciousness, and Thought for improving the well-being and perceptions for school climate of students at-risk for school failure. Students at-risk for academic failure were assigned to a treatment group (n= 75), and a waitlist comparison group (n= 34). Pre-and post-intervention, participants in both groups completed the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale, the Acceptance component of the Difficulties in Emotional Regulation Scale, and the Social and Emotional Learning, High Expectations, Caring Adults, and Peer Climate components of the Alaska School Climate and Connectedness Survey. Compared to the control group, students receiving this intervention (thirteen 45–60-minute sessions during regular school hours) reported improved mental health evidenced by a significant increase in mental well-being, state of mind, and hope for the future, and improved perceptions of school climate evidenced by a significant increase in conflict resolution, valuing academic success, and relational trust with teachers, peers, and school community.

Research on victimization has progressed dramatically over the last four decades. This research has identified important individual and contextual predictors of both fear and perceived risk. Nevertheless, few studies have examined perceptions of safety among corrections employees. The current study used data from 322 correctional staff working at a large Southern prison to explore personal and workplace predictors of perceived safety. Specifically, it examined the effects of personal and workplace variables on three measures of perceived safety: perceived dangerousness of the job, concerns about inmate-on-staff physical assault, and concerns about inmates verbally assaulting staff. Across all three measures of perceived safety, workplace characteristics mattered more than personal characteristics. The personal and workplace variables were grouped into fear facilitators (i.e., variables that increase perceptions of one’s safety being at risk) and fear inhibitors (i.e., variables that decrease perceptions of one’s safety being at risk). Gender, age, and organizational climate (i.e., disobedient inmates, unethical staff behaviors, role ambiguity, and overload) represented fear facilitators and social support (i.e., support from coworkers, supervisors, and home), quality training, and input into decision-making represented fear inhibitors. In the current study both fear facilitators and fear inhibitors were important, but the nature of their effects differed depending on the employee’s position and the type of perceived safety under consideration.