I Want to Know and I Want to Be Part of It: The Impact of Instrumental Communication and Integration on Private Prison Staff (original) (raw)
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The impact of instrumental communication and integration on correctional staff
The Justice Professional, 2002
The Justice Professional is pleased to announce that it is now being published by Routledge, part of the Taylor & Francis Group. The journal is issuing a call for papers and would particularly welcome contributions relating to the forthcoming special issue theme "Terrorism and Its Impact on All." The Justice Professional publishes articles that deal with substantive criminal justice and criminological issues. The journal welcomes all articles that are relevant to the issue of criminal justice as well as those that may be outside the field but have relevancy to the topic of criminal justice. We welcome articles on public administration, issues of public policy, as well as public affairs issues. Literature reviews, research notes, and summary reports of innovative research projects in criminal justice are also considered. This journal is refereed and published quarterly. Qualitative and quantitative articles are sought mainly from academics and researchers in the field, though articles from professionals will also be considered. We also dedicate an issue per year, on average, to a special edition, such as we have done in the past with "Capital Punishment" and "Minorities and Latinos."
The effect of job involvement on correctional staff
Professional Issues in Criminal Justice, 2008
The driving force of corrections is the staff of correctional facilities. It is important to understand how the work environment shapes the attitudes of correctional staff; yet, the effect of job involvement on correctional employees has received little, if any, attention. Most of the research to date has focused on job stress and job satisfaction among correctional staff. Only recently has there been research on other important work attitudes, such as job involvement. Job involvement may have important effects on salient work outcomes. Therefore, there is a need to explore how job involvement may influence correctional staff job stress, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, life satisfaction, turnover intentions, family-on-work conflict, and work-on-family conflict. By using data acquired from a survey of staff of a state-run correctional facility in the Midwest, the researcher examined the effects of job involvement on correctional staff job stress, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, life satisfaction, turnover intentions, family-on-work conflict, and work-on-family conflict. After controlling for gender, age, tenure, position, educational level, race, and supervisory status, the researcher conducted a multivariate analysis, which indicated that job involvement had a statistically significant positive relationship with job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and both forms of work-family conflict. Job involvement was observed to have non-significant direct effects on correctional staff job stress, life satisfaction, and turnover intentions. Work in corrections is often a hard, demanding job that usually holds little prestige in society, but it also can be a rewarding experience. "Few other organizations are charged with the central task of supervising and securing an unwilling and potentially violent population" (Armstrong & Griffin, 2004, p. 577). Armstrong and Griffin further contend that "correctional institutions are unique work environments in both context and purpose" (2004, p. 577). Further, corrections occupies an important place in the criminal justice system as well as in society (Goodstein & MacKenzie, 1989). Due to the importance of corrections in society and the criminal justice system, a growing body of research involves correctional officers. This research is required to understand how correctional staff influence the organization and, in turn, how the correctional organization affects the workers. Correctional staff are the heart and soul of any correctional organization. Staff are responsible for myriad tasks and responsibilities that ensure that the organization meets its goals of providing a safe, humane, and secure environment. Correctional organizations succeed (or fail) based on their employees. Archambeault and Archambeault point out that "correctional workers represent the single most important resource available to any correctional agency or institution in attempting to accomplish its mission, goals, and objectives" (1982: xxii). Correctional staff are the driving force of any correctional organization. The correctional staff literature to date has focused mainly on the effects of work environment on the attitudes and behaviors of correctional staff, particularly on the antecedents of job stress, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment. While many studies have focused on antecedents of work factors involving correctional staff, not all possible antecedents have been examined. The concept of job involvement has received very little attention in the correctional literature. This oversight is salient. Job involvement has been theorized to be the force that helps shape many employee and organizational outcomes. Diefendorff, Brown, Kamin, and Lord argue that job involvement is "a key factor influencing important individual and organizational outcomes" (2002, 93). Furthermore, Brown contends that "increasing job involvement can enhance organizational effectiveness and productivity by engaging employees more completely in their work and making work a more meaningful and fulfilling experience" (1996, 235). Outside the field of corrections, job involvement is theorized to be an antecedent of job stress, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, life satisfaction, turnover intentions, and work-family conflict (Brown, 1996). Nevertheless, due to a lack of empirical exploration in the correctional literature, there is a question of what, if any, effects job involvement has on correctional staff job stress, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, life satisfaction, turnover intentions, and work-family conflict. This preliminary study examines an empirical void in the correctional literature: the effects of job involvement on correctional staff. Specifically, it examines the effect of job involvement by means of a multivariate analysis, while controlling for the personal characteristics of gender, age, tenure, position, educational level, race, and supervisory status, on correctional staff job stress, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, life satisfaction, turnover intentions, and work-family conflict. Literature Review Job involvement is the degree of importance an individual assigns the job in his or her life (i.e., central life interest) (
Security Journal, 2005
Work can be stressful. The most common work-related stressors are the role stressors, which include role conflict, role ambiguity, role overload, and dangerousness. All have received attention in the correctional job stress literature. The vast majority of this research has examined the impact of these role stressors on job stress and job satisfaction. Little, if any, research has examined the impact of these stressors on correctional staffs' organizational commitment. Moreover, despite a growing body of literature, the influence of role stressors on private prison staff has rarely been examined. In filling this research void, the following study examines the impact of role stressors on job stress, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment among staff at a Midwestern private prison. Ordinary least squares (OLS) regression models showed that all four role stressors had statistically significant effects on job stress. Role conflict, role ambiguity, and role overload each had a significant impact on job satisfaction, while role conflict and role ambiguity had significant effects on the organizational commitment of private prison staff. This article concludes with the implications of these findings for correctional research and practice.
Criminal Justice Review, 2008
As staff performance is vital to the survival of correctional institutions, much empirical attention has been paid to studying the causes and consequences of their attitudes and behaviors. The current study adds to this body of knowledge by examining the factors that explain three central occupational attitudes-job stress, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment. More specifically, using survey data collected from a large county correctional system in Orlando, Florida, this research assesses the impact of key demographic, job, and organizational characteristics within and across jail staff attitudes toward job stress, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment. This article finds that the more powerful predictors of each of these attitudes are job and organizational characteristics. Among the dependent variables, job stress has an inverse relationship with job satisfaction, and job satisfaction had a powerful positive association with organizational commitment. production of inanimate objects, or providing services to willing clients or customers. Correctional organizations deal with inmates, many of whom are violent and being held against their will (Jayewardene & Jayasuriya, 1981). Because of the complexities of dealing with the unique correctional environment, staff are critical. In fact, correctional organizations usually succeed or fail because of their employees' performance. Satisfied, committed staff, who do not suffer from undue job stress, can help a facility become a model correctional organization. Conversely, overly stressed, unhappy, and uncommitted staff can lead to failure and disaster for a correctional organization.
Criminal Justice Studies, 2006
While the amount of research on prison organizations is increasing, most of the publications in this area have focused on the relationship between organizational centralization and correctional staff job satisfaction. The impact of organizational formalization has been largely ignored. The current study utilized survey responses from 272 staff at a Midwestern high security state prison to examine various forms of centralization and formalization in an attempt to understand their impact on correctional staff job satisfaction and organizational commitment. With respect to the two major dimensions of centralization noted by previous research (i.e., decision-making input and job autonomy), it was found that low levels of staff input into decision-making and low levels of job autonomy both had significant negative effects on job satisfaction and organizational commitment for both the full sample of employees, as well as the subsample of correctional officers. In addition, formalization was found to have significant positive impacts on both job satisfaction and organizational commitment for the full sample of correctional staff, while mixed results were found for the subsample of correctional officers.
Job Satisfaction and Organizational Commitment in Prisons
Criminal Justice and Behavior, 2008
Staff are the most valuable and expensive resources in prisons. Although correctional officers have received considerable academic attention, we know very little about their noncustody counterparts. This study examines and compares the predictors of job satisfaction, institutional commitment, and commitment to a prison system among three noncustody groups: psychological staff, teachers, and unit management personnel. Data are taken from the 2005 Prison Social Climate Survey, a questionnaire sent annually to a stratified random sample of federal prison staff. Results of Hierarchical Linear Modeling analyses indicate that supervision and perceived effectiveness with inmates had a significant and positive impact on all dependent variables for each noncustody group. The amount of time spent working in a prison was also a common predictor of institutional commitment for all groups. Some differences in significant predictors were found across noncustody groups for several independent vari...
Correlates of correctional officer job stress: The impact of organizational structure
American Journal of Criminal Justice, 2006
Corrections can be a very stressful occupation, producing many negative outcomes for employees. These outcomes, both mental and physical, not only affect the employee, but the entire organization. A large body of literature has focused on identifying correlates of correctional staff job stress; yet, not all of the possible correlates have been studied. One area that has received little, if any, attention is the impact of the organizational structure on correctional job stress. Organizational structure includes issues of centralization, instrumental communication, integration, and organizational justice. The results of multivariate analysis indicate that instrumental communication and procedural justice have a direct effect on correctional staff job stress.
American Journal of Criminal Justice, 2012
Jails are important, yet understudied, components of the American criminal justice system. While most research on correctional personnel has focused on prisons, a growing body of work is beginning to emerge on jails. This is encouraging given the unique circumstances that occur within jail environments (e.g., diversity and mobility of offenders, health issues among detainees, overcrowding, lack of training among staff, etc.). Given these conditions, the staff members who run jails become the glue that holds them together. The following study contributes to this burgeoning area of empirical inquiry by examining a variety of antecedents of job stress, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment among jail personnel. Using survey data collected from a large county correctional system in Orlando, Florida, the findings indicate that staff perceptions of professionalism, detainee control, and administrative support all significantly impact degrees of job stress, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment.
2012
This study examines the effect of prison security level on job satisfaction and job burnout among prison employees. It also examines the effect of job satisfaction, as an independent variable, on job burnout. The data for this study were collected from all staff working in three prisons in the State of Indiana, USA -one maximum security prison (n = 176) and two medium security prisons (n = 146, and n = 158). The findings from this study showed that there was no difference in job satisfaction among prison employees who work in the maximum security prison compared to those who work in medium security prison. Additionally, this study showed that prison security level had a partial effect on job burnout among prison employees. Prison employees who work in medium level security reported having more control over work-related activities compared to those who work in maximum security prison. Prison security level did not have any significant effects on emotional exhaustion and personal accomplishment. Job satisfaction, on the other hand, was inversely related to job burnout. This study showed that an increase in job satisfaction is manifested with a decrease in job burnout.