Job Satisfaction Among Correctional Officers: Research Study

Introduction and Problem Statement

One of the enduring problems in modern law enforcement is the high rate of job dissatisfaction among correctional officers, which anecdotally is even higher than job dissatisfaction rates among other law enforcement professionals. A number of factors are believed to contribute to this dissatisfaction, which in turn contributes to other problems for correctional facilities, such as high rates of employee turnover. Job dissatisfaction can also increase danger within the correctional facility environment because it may affect prisoner morale, result in officers not being sufficiently attentive to changes in prisoner behavior, and make it difficult to keep staff adequately trained to respond to situations that develop in that environment.

All of these scenarios can negatively reinforce one another, making the problem cyclical. This suggests that employee satisfaction will vary by correctional institution, and that high rates of dissatisfaction are likely to influence new employees as well. In order to determine whether this is true, it is important to investigate the correlation between job satisfaction levels when a new hire begins working at a correctional institution and that new hire's own self-reported job satisfaction at the end of a traditional probationary work period.

If the anticipated correlation between prevailing job satisfaction rates and new hires' self-reported satisfaction exists, then job satisfaction is not simply about changing working conditions — it is also about changing employee perceptions of those conditions. Fixing the level of job dissatisfaction at a correctional institution is therefore not as simple as replacing staff members; there must be a broader effort to change all employee attitudes.

Problem Statement: Is the level of general employee self-reported satisfaction or dissatisfaction at the time that a new hire is employed an accurate predictor of that newly hired employee's self-reported job satisfaction or dissatisfaction three months after being hired?

Research Objective: To determine whether the prevailing rates of job satisfaction or dissatisfaction at a correctional institution at the time that a new hire joins have an impact on the new hire's own self-reported job satisfaction.

Research Questions: What is the prevailing rate of job satisfaction at the time a new hire begins his or her tenure at a correctional facility? Do job satisfaction rates vary according to job type, or does satisfaction seem fairly consistent across the facility? What is the new hire's self-reported job satisfaction after three months of employment?

Hypothesis: The prevailing rates of job satisfaction in a correctional institution will be predictive of a new hire's self-reported job satisfaction after three months in a new position at a correctional facility.

Literature Review: Factors Affecting Correctional Officer Satisfaction

For those unfamiliar with correctional facilities, the importance of living and working conditions for inmates and staff alike may come as a surprise. While inmates may live in conditions that most people outside a correctional facility would find burdensome, those conditions are a serious concern for the employees and administrators who handle day-to-day operations. They must ensure that prisoners live in environments that are as safe as possible — not only for inmates, but for employees as well.

Many factors that affect those conditions are beyond the control of correctional facility employees and administrators, such as prison overcrowding or lack of funding. Employee satisfaction, however, is one area over which administrators can exercise meaningful control. Low rates of employee satisfaction can have a very negative impact on prisoner living conditions: unhappy employees may contribute to high turnover, increase the risk of prisoner abuse, fail to notice dangerous conditions, and otherwise compromise facility safety. High employee job dissatisfaction therefore has the potential to create dangerous conditions inside correctional facilities — putting correctional officers, inmates, and ultimately the public at risk.

One of the factors most clearly linked to employee job dissatisfaction is high employee turnover. Graham et al. conducted an exploratory study examining the reasons for correctional officer turnover at the Georgia Department of Corrections (GDC) and discovered that job satisfaction played a critical role in determining turnover rates (2007). Organizational commitment also helped predict turnover trends. The researchers further decomposed job satisfaction into several components: recognition, compensation, salaries, advancement, creativity, responsibility, moral values, and achievement.

Job satisfaction is a complex concept that can be measured through established psychological frameworks. Udechukwu (2009) examined job satisfaction in correctional officers using both Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and Herzberg's Motivation-Hygiene Theory. Maslow's hierarchy begins with physiological needs and moves upward through safety, love and belonging, esteem, and self-actualization. Herzberg's two-factor theory classifies factors that contribute to job satisfaction as motivators and those that contribute to dissatisfaction as hygiene factors. Hygiene factors — including company policies, supervision, relationships with supervisors, working conditions, salaries, and peer relationships — do not generate satisfaction when present but produce dissatisfaction when absent. Motivators — including achievement, recognition, the work itself, responsibility, advancement, and growth — actively drive satisfaction. Notably, salary functions as a hygiene factor: adequate pay prevents dissatisfaction but does not, on its own, generate satisfaction.

When Maslow's hierarchy is applied to the correctional environment, the need for safety emerges as particularly critical. If a correctional facility cannot guarantee a minimum level of physical safety for its workers, job satisfaction will decline. Lambert et al. (2012) examined how the workplace environment in a correctional facility affected organizational commitment among 272 staff members at a Midwestern maximum-security state prison. The study assessed associations between occupational stressors — perceived job dangerousness, role conflict, role ambiguity, repetitiveness, and work-to-family conflict — and three forms of organizational commitment: affective, continuance, and moral. Results showed that the impact of stressors differed depending on the type of organizational commitment being considered.

Slate et al. (2001) surveyed employees at a private minimum-security correctional institute about the influence of occupational and physical stress, management practices, demographic variables, and thoughts about quitting. Their findings suggested consistency over time in the reasons officers chose to leave, with organizational stress being the strongest predictor of turnover intent. Employees who felt involved in institutional decision-making were less likely to report wanting to quit. However, fewer than half of the eligible employees responded to the survey, raising the possibility that responses were skewed in either a positive or negative direction.

Thomas (2012) examined aspects of correctional employment that might be affected by on-the-job trauma — including vicarious trauma and secondary traumatic stress. Variables examined included job satisfaction, hours in direct contact with inmates, personal and organizational support, perceived job-related danger, violent incidents observed, and personal assaults by inmates. The findings showed that certain job-related and non-job-related factors made officers more vulnerable to vicarious trauma and secondary traumatic stress, and that these factors extended well beyond simple likelihood of exposure to traumatic incidents.

Across the literature, one of the most consistent findings is a link between safety — or exposure to risk — and job satisfaction for correctional officers. Viewed through the lens of Maslow's hierarchy, officers who do not feel safe at work are unlikely to access any of the higher-order satisfiers also present in their environment. Moreover, given the theoretical relationship between dissatisfaction and reduced safety, the problem appears self-perpetuating: officers in dangerous facilities report lower satisfaction, and dissatisfied officers likely contribute to conditions that are less safe for both prisoners and fellow officers.

Survey Instrument and Questionnaire Design

The purpose of the questionnaire is to examine whether the prevailing job-satisfaction rate at a correctional facility when a new hire joins is correlated with that new hire's self-reported job satisfaction three months later. Existing employees will complete the questionnaire at the time a new cohort of recruits is hired; those recruits will complete it again three months after being hired. The existing employees will not be retested at that second administration.

Time Frame: The questionnaire can be completed in 30 minutes or less. Because staff already attend mandatory weekly meetings, those meetings provide a natural administration opportunity. The survey will be administered just prior to a group of new recruits beginning work and then again to those recruits three months later.

Statement on Confidentiality: Because the survey is administered during mandatory employee meetings, participants may have concerns about confidentiality. Surveys will be completed on researcher-supplied computers through a website that does not access any employee data. The researcher will receive all results "blind" — with no information linking responses to individual respondents — providing the highest degree of confidentiality possible in a study of this type.

Survey Questions:

Question 1. On a scale of 1 to 5, how satisfied are you at this job? (1 = Very satisfied; 2 = Somewhat satisfied; 3 = Neutral; 4 = Some issues; 5 = Unhappy.) This Likert-scale item is the survey's most direct measure of an employee's own perception of job satisfaction.

Question 2. On a scale of 1 to 5, how likely are you to look for other employment in the next six months? (1 = Very likely; 2 = Somewhat likely; 3 = Neutral; 4 = Possible; 5 = Not at all.) Job satisfaction is correlated with intent to seek other employment, though external factors such as the economy also play a role. Because employee turnover may contribute to safety issues in correctional facilities, this question is particularly important.

Question 3. Do employees at your level get to participate in the policy-making process? (Yes / No.) This dichotomous item assesses employee perceptions of their involvement in institutional decision-making — a factor the literature associates with lower turnover intent.

Question 4. On average, how many violent incidents per week occur in the correctional facility? This open-ended numeric item allows the researcher to compare respondent estimates against officially reported incident data.

Question 5. Is your employer taking adequate steps to keep you as safe as possible, given that you work in a correctional facility? (Yes / No.) This item asks respondents to assess employer safety efforts while acknowledging the inherent dangers of the correctional environment.

Question 6. Do you feel there is an employee morale problem at your workplace? (Yes / No.) This item probes employee perceptions of collective morale.

Question 7. Do you feel you are paid adequately for the job that you do? (Yes / No.) While higher pay does not necessarily increase satisfaction, employees who feel underpaid consistently report greater job dissatisfaction.

Question 8. Do you feel you have opportunities for advancement in your current job? (Yes / No.) This item assesses whether respondents perceive themselves to be in "dead-end" positions.

Question 9. Do you feel you had adequate training to do your job? (Yes / No.) This item determines whether respondents believe they were sufficiently prepared for their responsibilities.

Question 10. What types of resources are available to help you do your job properly? (Open-ended.) This item captures not only which resources employees identify but also the number and variety of resources they perceive as available.

References

Graham, S., Harrington, W., Manyak, T., Segal, S., & Udechukwu, I. (2007, Fall). The Georgia Department of Corrections: An exploratory reflection on correctional officer turnover and its correlates. Public Personnel Management, 36(3), 247+.

Lambert, E. G., Kelley, T., & Hogan, N. L. (2013). The association of occupational stressors with different forms of organizational commitment among correctional staff. American Journal of Criminal Justice: AJCJ, 38(3), 408–501. doi:10.1007/s12103-012-9183-1

Slate, R. N., Vogel, R. E., & Johnson, W. W. (2001). To quit or not to quit: Perceptions of participation in correctional decision making and the impact of organizational stress. Corrections Management Quarterly, 5(2), 68–77.

Thomas, B. (2012). Predictors of vicarious trauma and secondary traumatic stress among correctional officers (PCOM Psychology Dissertations, Paper 228). Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine.

Udechukwu, I. I. (2009). Correctional officer turnover: Of Maslow's needs hierarchy and Herzberg's motivation theory. Public Personnel Management, 38(2), 69–82.