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Drawing from organizational justice theory, this study examined the mediating effects of organizational trust on the association between organizational justice (i.e. in the forms of distributive and procedural justice) and the job attitudes of job satisfaction and organizational commitment in a sample of 220 correctional staff employed full-time at a high-security prison in the U.S. Midwest. Ordinary least squares regression results indicated that participant perceptions of organizational trust fully mediated the association between procedural justice and job satisfaction, but only partially mediated the association between distributive justice and job satisfaction. Further, organizational trust fully mediated the association between both distributive and procedural organizational justice and staff commitment toward the organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Burnout is a phenomenon commonly found in the workplace. When burnout is job-related, it is considered job burnout. Historically, job burnout has been most common among those who work in human services fields and who deal with stressful situations on a regular basis. Job burnout consists of three components: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and feelings of work ineffectiveness. While job burnout may be common, not all workers in stressful fields experience it, which indicates that there must be organizational or individual factors that limit the likelihood of job burnout for some workers. This study examined the impact of four job-related factors (job stress, job involvement, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment) on the three components of job burnout for correctional workers in a large, maximum-security prison in the Southern United States. The findings indicated that the four job-related factors were related strongly and in the predicted direction to two or three of the measures of job burnout. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While both forms of organizational justice are important, the empirical literature indicates that procedural justice generally has wider and greater effects on job attitudes compared with distributive justice. Regression analysis of self-reported survey data from 322 staff at two Chinese prisons in Guangzhou suggests that, while both forms of organizational justice were important for Chinese correctional staff’s organizational commitment, distributive (but not procedural) justice had significant positive associations with both job involvement and job satisfaction. This emphasis on distributive justice differs from what has been empirically found for U.S. correctional staff. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been limited research on the correlates of organizational commitment among community correctional staff, regardless of the nation. Using data from 225 community correction officers from Hubei, China, this study examined community correctional staff commitment to their agencies and its predictors. The study found the majority of the respondents had commitment to their organizations. Organizational structure variables were more powerful than job characteristics in explaining the variance of the organizational commitment. All relationships between organizational structure variables, job characteristics, and organizational commitment were mediated by job satisfaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Correctional research has just begun to explore the effects of variables and their differences over the course of a career within the field. This study examined several correctional staff outcomes and how they varied over three identified career stages (initial, establishment, and maintenance) at a state-government operated prison. Results indicated that job involvement, job satisfaction, affective commitment, moral commitment, and turnover intent were highest during the initial stage of employment, which is contrary to other occupations. Job stress and continuance commitment remained equal across all three career stages. Findings suggest that the effects on career stages are contextual and vary across different types of organizations. Furthermore, the strains and stresses of working in a correctional institution may not be cumulative but remain steady across a career. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent literature has found that organizational commitment of correctional staff is highly influenced by the workplace and can either result in positive or negative behaviors. Most research, though, has examined predictors of only one type of commitment. This study looked at three types of commitment (continuance, moral, and affective) and their influence on the outcomes of correctional orientation, views of absenteeism, and turnover intent. The results indicate that the three dimensions of commitment varied in their impact on the organization outcomes and provide insight into the complex nature of the bonds that tie employees to this unique organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even though work–family conflict has been linked to negative outcomes for both correctional facilities and staff, little research has been conducted on how workplace factors may be related to it. This study tested nine hypotheses based on the job demand–resource model. Ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analysis of survey data from 160 staff revealed that while most job demand variables (i.e., the role stressors of role conflict, role overload, and perceived dangerousness) predicted work–family conflict, the same did not hold for job resource variables (i.e., the workplace factors of job autonomy, supervision, job variety, instrumental communication, and integration). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The nucleus of any correctional organization is its correctional staff. There are expected in-role behaviors and duties of the staff, but extra-role behaviors (referred to as organizational citizenship behavior) also are important for correctional organizations. However, there has been little research on correctional staff organizational citizenship behavior. Based on social exchange theory, organizational justice should be important in shaping the organizational citizenship behavior of correctional staff. Distributive and procedural justice are two salient dimensions of organizational justice. Survey data from staff at a private prison indicated that procedural justice had a significant positive relationship with organizational citizenship behavior, but distributive justice had a nonsignificant association. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although emotional burnout of prison staff is costly to all involved, it has not received the kind of research attention that is warranted. This exploratory study focused on the impact of job characteristics on the emotional exhaustion dimension of burnout of prison staff. Using data from 272 staff members at a Midwestern state prison, this study found that both job feedback and job autonomy had negative effects on the index of emotional exhaustion burnout; however, both supervision and job variety had nonsignificant effects. The study further discussed possible reasons for both the significant and nonsignificant relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Job stress and job satisfaction have both received a considerable amount of attention among studies of organizations in general, and correctional organizations are no exception. Although many work-related factors have been used to explain these two concepts, several important areas have been excluded. The current study builds on existing research by examining job stress and job satisfaction and bow they are affected by American Correctional Association (ACA) standards, relations with coworkers, and prison policies. Using survey data collected from a large county correctional system in Orlando, Florida, the findings suggest that ACA views, relations with coworkers, and institutional policies all have significant effects on job stress and satisfaction of correctional staff. The authors also find that these three work environment variables have a far greater magnitude of effects than do the personal characteristics of employees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]