In Stress and the Correctional Officer, Kelly Cheeseman Dial examines officer stress and job satisfaction. The main goal is to present the results of a recent study examining correctional officers in alarge correctional system in the United States. For more information or to purchase a copy, please check out LFB Scholarly Publishing.
Role Conflict
In Guards Imprisoned (1981), Lombardo concluded that role conflict occurred when an officer was restricted from doing what he felt was necessary by virtue of the rules or by adverse supervisory decisions. Lombardo interviewed fifty-two correctional officers at the Auburn Correctional facility in Auburn, New York, a maximum security facility. Lombardo (1981) found that fifty percent of the respondents identified physical strain and mental strain as a dissatisfying feature of their work. His study argued that feelings of danger might have derived less from actual assaults and more from the realization that officers face the never ending possibility of victimization and that these attacks could come at any moment. A review of the book in 1982, commented on how Lombardo’s work was one of the first studies to go past the traditional one-dimensional approach, and how it painted a realistic portrait of prison guards.
Additional research in the area of role conflict in correctional personnel has been broken down in three distinct types:
1. The officer found that treatment and custody are incompatible.
2. There is frustration when an officer tries to carry out treatment and custodial duties simultaneously.
3. Problems generated between officers who adhere to treatment orientation and those who maintain a strict custodial orientation (Crouch, 1980).
When officers feel that their job duties are in direct conflict with one another this can lead to stress. Furthermore, and as future studies explored, when officers see their job duties as different this can lead to conflicts between staff members, which could also lead to increased levels of work stress. This coincides with Lombardo’s (1981) work in which he found that officers sometimes worked against one another, instead of offering help or assistance.
Role ambiguity and conflict can lead to significant levels of burnout, emotional exhaustion, and depersonalization, which contribute to stress outside of the correctional environment (Whitehead and Lindquist, 1986). Some researchers have concluded that role conflict is higher in minimum security institutions where there is more likely to be mixed treatment and custody roles than in high security institutions (Cheek and Miller, 1987; Cullen et al., 1985) . Cheek and Miller reexamined role conflict and correctional officer stress in 1987.
Their study identified stress in correctional settings as a crisis, which if left unsolved, would lead to soaring rates of turnover and absenteeism. Prison officials were seen as too quick to change policies, procedures, and goals, which created increased levels of role conflict leading to job stress and burnout. In her examination of the literature on role conflict, Philliber (1987) points out some concerns. First, she concluded that much of the literature on role conflict among correctional officers has not been collected utilizing a systematic approach, as many of the authors are not studying the same concept. It should also be explained that the research does not differentiate between the role conflict felt by officers because of the different roles they have to perform and the conflict felt between officers and others because they each have different tasks in corrections. Furthermore, internal and external forces that put the officer under pressure to fulfill a certain role can often cause role conflict.
Correctional officers often take on many roles within their shifts, such as a rule enforcer and a role model for inmates. In 1994, Cornelius studied the correctional environment and argued that correctional officers had eight distinct roles to play. Table 3.2 identifies these eight separate roles.
With multiple roles come increased demands. Officers are asked to quickly jump from one role to the next depending upon the situation. Stress, consequently, is an inevitable and inherent part of correctional employment (Cornelius, 1994). In addition, Grossi and Berg (1991) noted that many stressors involved in corrections are similar to those police officers face, especially when there are “unreasonable demands and expectations on their role as correctional officers; vacillating political attitudes toward the institutional role of corrections” (p. 75).
The ability for officers to trust their superiors is important in reducing role and job stress. In 1995, Liuo examined role stress and job stress among detention caseworkers and detention officers in two regional metropolitan detention centers in the southeast. The detention workers were asked questions on supervisor trust, job security, punitive orientation, role stress, and job stress. The study found that role stress was correlated significantly with supervisor trust, job security, and a punitive orientation, whereas job stress was correlated significantly with supervisor trust and treatment orientation. Demographic variables, such as age, gender, race, and education, did not contribute significantly to either role stress or job stress.
An officer’s perception of his or her work role and the ability to perform the prescribed duties can alter the severity of role conflict. Hemmens and Stohr (2000) explored two main correctional roles: (1) hack and (2) human service. Their study was conducted with 224 correctional officers at the Idaho State Correctional Institution. Officers were given a correctional role instrument, asking questions on whether they were more inclined toward the “hack” or “human service” orientation. Hacks are employees who follow the traditional prison guard orientation.
They expect full inmate cooperation and see their role as controlling the inmate population through a variety of means including force, intimidation, and fear. Human service oriented officers are more likely to take on a social worker type role in which they see their jobs as one of helper, counselor, and agent for positive change in the inmate’s life. Not surprisingly, the results of their analysis showed that not all correctional officers have the same role orientation.