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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 that the correctional facility is safe, secure, and humane. Past research has found that organizational trust, in terms of supervisor and management trust, influences private prison staff in many outcome areas, such as job involvement, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, job stress, feeling at risk at work, and job burnout; however, there is a dearth of research on how workplace variables may contribute to organizational trust. The current study examined how the major forms of social support (family, coworkers, supervisor, and management) were related to supervisor trust and management trust among 160 staff at a private U.S. prison. Based on ordinary least squares (OLS) multivariate regression, the results indicated coworker, supervisor, and management support each had significant positive effects on supervisor trust, with supervisor support having the largest effect. In another OLS multivariate regression analysis, family, supervisor, and management support had significant positive effects on management trust, with management support having the largest effect. The findings suggest that private prison administrators should consider increasing all four forms of social support in order to raise both supervisor and management trust. It would be a valuable investment in staff. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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 for budgetary restraint increase, it is paramount that administrators find and retain good staff. Staff retention is influenced by workplace factors. This study explored the four types o work-family (time-based conflict, strain-based conflict, behavior-based conflict, and family-based conflict) and their effects on job involvement. Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression results indicated that age, position (correctional officers) and time-based conflict had negative effects on job involvement, and family-based conflict had positive effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing from person–environment fit theory, the current study adds to recent empirical inquires that have considered how workplace factors affect jail staff. In doing so, the focus is on how perceptions of pay fairness effect the job stress, job involvement, and organizational commitment of jail personnel. Utilizing survey data from a large county correctional system in Orlando, Florida, the results of multivariate analyses reveal that staff that hold more favorable perceptions of pay fairness are more involved in their jobs and more committed to the overall organization. The implications of these findings for correctional research and practice are considered. [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]

Past empirical research has indicated that workplace factors affect the work attitudes of police officers. Police officers (N = 827) were surveyed in two districts (Sonipat and Rohtak) in the State of Haryana in the Republic of India. Ordinary least squares regression analysis was used to test the effects of job variables (i.e., job autonomy, job variety, training, and supervision) on job attitudes (i.e., job involvement, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment). Results indicate that variety, training, and supervision had positive associations with involvement, satisfaction, and commitment. Job autonomy had no association with job satisfaction or organizational commitment and had a negative association with job involvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Personnel are critical to the success of any security organization, and this is especially true of private prisons. Therefore, it is essential to understand how their organizational commitment is affected by workplace factors. There are two major forms of organizational commitment, continuance and affective. To examine how the salient workplace factors of job stress, job involvement, and job satisfaction were related to the continuance and affective commitment of personnel working for a private prison, data from a survey of personnel at a maximum security private prison were examined. Two ordinary least squares regression equations were run with continuance and affective commitment as the dependent variables. The amount of variance explained between the two regression equations was noticeably different. A larger percentage of the variance was accounted for in the affective commitment regression equation as compared to the continuance commitment multivariate analysis. Moreover, job stress had a positive association with continuance commitment, and a nonsignificant relationship with affective commitment. Job involvement had a nonsignificant effect on continuance commitment and a positive effect on affective commitment. Job satisfaction had a negative impact on continuance commitment and a positive relationship with affective commitment. Overall, the results support the contention that the two commitment measures are not affected similarly by job stress, involvement, and satisfaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much of the research on correctional staff over the past two decades has focused on how the job environment and demographic variables influence job stress and job satisfaction. The issue of job involvement has largely been ignored. As correctional employees are such an important part of corrections, understanding how job stressors affect job involvement is essential. An analysis of survey data from a private correctional facility in the US Midwest examined the effects of the relationship between the job stressors of role conflict, role ambiguity, role overload, and perceived dangerous of the job with job involvement. Multivariate analysis with ordinary least squares ( OLS) regression indicated that role conflict and dangerousness of the job had significant effects on job involvement, but role ambiguity and role overload did not. It is hoped that this study will spark further research in the area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much of the research on correctional officers over the past two decades has focused on job stress, job satisfaction, the job environment, and how demographic variables such as gender, race, health and family conflict influenced stress and job satisfaction. Because correctional staff is such an integral part of corrections, understanding job involvement and its impact on correctional employees is important, yet it has received little attention in the literature. Using survey data from a private correctional facility in the Midwest, the authors examined the effects of job involvement on job stress, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, absenteeism, and turnover intentions. A multivariate analysis indicated that job involvement had significant effects on all the predicted outcome variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an era in which rising costs, shrinking budgets, and personnel shortages are common, it is increasingly important to provide a positive work situation to ensure worker stability. Research indicates that job burnout is a negative response that is harmful to the employee and to the organization. Depersonalization, emotional exhaustion, and feeling a lack of accomplishment at work are all dimensions of job burnout. This study examined the association of job involvement, job stress, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment with burnout among correctional staff. The findings highlight the significance of these variables in relation to burnout. Specifically, job satisfaction had an inverse relationship with emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and a sense of reduced accomplishment at work, whereas job stress had a significant positive relationship with depersonalization and emotional exhaustion. Job involvement also had a positive association with emotional exhaustion, whereas commitment to the organization had no relationship with any of the three dimensions of burnout. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature suggests that social support, in general, is linked to positive outcomes among correctional staff, but the different types of social support may differ in their effects. Using survey data from staff working at a privately-owned, maximum security prison for juveniles sentenced as adults, this study analyzes three intra-organizational supports, administrative, supervisory, and coworker, and one extra-organizational form, family/friends support, as antecedents of job stress, job involvement, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment. Personal variables serve as controls. Administrative and supervisory support are inversely related to job stress, while job involvement is affected positively by supervisory support and negatively by family/friends support. All three intra-organizational forms of support are significant antecedents of job satisfaction and organizational commitment however family/friends support is not. These findings hold implications for improving job outcomes among correctional staff and for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]