Are Correctional Staff Sick of Their Jobs or Are Their Jobs Making Them Sick?

By: Kathryn Seifert
Submitted: 2007-01-17 16:26:34
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Correctional employees perform a difficult, but necessary task that is vital to public safety. They experience chronic stress due to inescapable job factors. Reducing the well documented work stress among correctional employees has the potential to make them healthier and more effective in their jobs. To reduce stress, it is necessary to understand its parameters and the variables that are related to it. If employees' mental or physical health decreases due to work stress, preventive services are needed. Greater worker health is beneficial to the worker, the organization, and society.

Frecknall (1989) states that 3% of American employees are absent every working day and that 50% of sick leave is stress related. Schuler (1989) states that government and business spend $10-20 billion a year on employee health care. Sullivan and Bhagat (1992) said that stress related costs to the economy are 10% of the GNP. Documenting the relationship between stress and health will provide a foundation upon which to build cost-effective stress management and heath care programs for correctional staff.

How well individual employees accommodate to stressors is undoubtedly related to many factors. The present study focused on four: perceived social support at work and at home, cynicism, and prior trauma. The effects of these conditions on mental and physical illness symptoms were assessed. Role conflict can exist in many forms. There can be conflict between the work role and the employee's values. Roles which do not have clearly articulated expectations concerning appropriate behaviors or performance are ambiguous roles. Role conflict and ambiguity are significantly related to lower productivity, and more tension and dissatisfaction and work stress.

Ambiguity and conflict are significant features of the correctional officer role. While the primary goal of the officer is well defined as maintaining security and safety, the means of accomplishing the prime directive are usually less clear. The task of managing inmates often involves the interpretation and application of existing rules and regulations as well as a set of unwritten rules. These informal rules are passed on to employees in a socialization process. In many prisons there are often employee factions that support very different sets of informal rules about officer behavior.

Prisons are dangerous work environments. Prison violence includes danger from the hostile and sociopathic behavior of offenders. Inmates fight with each other, victimize each other, and attack staff. When these violent events occur, they increase feelings of lack of control and helplessness among employees. Lack of control over danger in one's environment is a significant environmental stressor.

Research to date indicates that social support is related to stress and well-being. Support from coworkers and supervisors has a stronger association with lower work stress than family support. However, the results of studies of the relationship between social support, work stress and negative stress outcomes remains mixed. Different results have been found depending on the source, amount, and type of support and the personality of the employee.

Levy (Martinkowski, 1993) defines cynicism as a system of beliefs and attitudes that is manifested by statements and actions that assume that the motivations and behaviors of others, including organizations, are predominantly selfish, self-serving, or exploitative. Cynics question the worth of any endeavor that is proposed as altruistic, aimed at the common good, or well meaning. They express or imply contempt for authority and those who cooperate with authority. Highly cynical people avoid unqualified involvement in interpersonal and organizational relationships and activities for fear of exploitation.

A correctional officer's job is to control the selfish, self-serving, and exploitative behavior of inmates who have contempt for authority. Many criminal justice employees agree that the frustration of managing inmates and the daily exposure to the cynical attitudes of offenders hardens one's own attitudes. Over time, employees may generalize these negative attributes (lack of goodness and trustworthiness) to all individuals. This may increase employee cynicism. Ulmer (1992) hypothesize that employees who become disillusioned early in their careers terminate employment. The employees who are oriented toward rehabilitation and remain in the correctional field have higher perceived influence on superiors. They appear to gain skills to negotiate with superiors and consequently are less cynical about the prison administration.

Immunosuppression, excessive sympathetic reactivity, muscular tension, and physical exhaustion are results of the body's repeated and ineffective attempts to cope with stress. Axelrod and Reisine (1984) stated that those prone to hyper-reactivity to stressors (emotional distress) and those in a consistently stressful environment will place a strain on the gastrointestinal, cardiovascular, central nervous, and immune systems.

Several studies have found associations between work stress (distress) and illness. Sharit and Salvendy (1982), in their review of the occupational stress literature, concluded that there was a relationship between work stress and Coronary Heart Disease (CHD) . However, they also state that the research has not yet established causal relationships. Traditional risk factors appear to account for about 25% of CHD. Work stress and other factors are associated with the remaining 75%.

The sample of the present study consisted of 153 correctional employees from two mid-Atlantic state prisons. Predictor variables were social support at home and at work, cynicism, role problems, and work trauma. Criterion variables included emotional distress and physical health.

Work stress exists in every job environment. Identifying the factors which are associated with worker distress can make it possible to modify the environment in ways which are beneficial to the employee and the employer. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship of certain individual, interpersonal, and environmental variables to employee distress and illness in a correctional setting. The relationships are complex. Some of the findings of this study support existing research. Other results suggest new variables to be examined in the areas of work stress and health.

In this study there is a strong relationship between emotional distress and physical illness. This relationship is also well documented in the literature (Russek and Russek, 1976; Dignam and West, 1988; Hinkle and Wolff, 1957; Norvell, Belles, & Hills, 1988; Stotland, 1986). There are several possible explanations for this result. Emotional distress may tax cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, and other physical systems. Positive affect when emotional distress is low, may contribute to enhanced immune function and quicker resolution of sympathetic reactivity.

Role problems were related to cynicism. Cynicism can reflect distress about real organizational or role problems that need to be solved. Curtis et al. (1990) and Ulmer (1992) found that manager and administrator policy and behavior which cause frustration among staff are correlated with employee cynicism. Greenglass and Julkumen (1989), Houston and Vavak (1991), Smith, Pope, Sanders, Alfred, & O'Keith (1988), Smith and Frohm (1985), and Regoli et al. (1990) also reported that greater cynicism was significantly associated with lower social support. Employees who were low in cynicism may be more open to social support at home and at work. They may be more pleasant and thus, they may attract more social support than their more cynical and negative peers. Social support can help employees cope with their work stress more effective.

Work trauma was correlated with emotional distress. This is consistent with the work by Cullen et al. (1985) and Martin, McKean, & Veltkamp (1986) who found that work violence and perceived dangerousness were related to emotional distress. Work trauma was associated with life trauma, role problems, and work support. Work trauma may be associated with role problems because it engenders feelings of uncertainty and lack of control. Uncertainty can be generalized to role issues. Those who have experienced trauma at work may withdraw from the support of others. This withdrawal may be related to less assistance in difficult situations. This may lead to reduced effectiveness and higher reactivity in future dangerous situations. Inmates may take advantage of the aloneness of traumatized employees and may be more likely to attack them. Employees who have experienced more life trauma may over-react to and mismanage dangerous situations, leading to more violence.

Violence is distressing because of fear and sympathetic arousal. Those who have experienced violence in the past may have quicker and stronger sympathetic arousal which is resolved more slowly than those who have not had similar experience.

The results of this study demonstrated that correctional employees with greater life traumas, cynicism, and role problems and less social support at home and at work had greater emotional distress. Highly cynical employees were more distressed than less cynical employees. Life trauma predicted emotional distress, whereas work trauma did not. Employees who lack role clarity are more distressed than those who do not.

Lower work support often involves reductions in communication of important information, resources for stress management, direct assistance, problem solving, emotional support, socially rewarded roles, avoidance of negative experiences, and recognition of self worth. When home support is low, there may be a greater need to find a source of support at work. It is also possible that strong work support encourages greater attachment to work and less attachment to home.

The emotional distancing of correctional work is not always carried over to home relationships. When home support was high, there was no relationship between the level of work support and emotional distress. Some employees appear to be able to maintain high home support, despite the perceived need to be more emotionally distant at work. These employees may be able to behave differently at work and at home. They may have less need for strong, supportive work relationships even in a stressful work environment

There was a strong relationship between less work support and greater physical illness when cynicism was low. For highly cynical employees, there was no relationship between work support and illness.

References upon request

Dr. Kathryn Seifert is a psychotherapist with over 30 years experience in mental health, addictions, and criminal justice work. Dr. Seifert has authored the CARE, guided imagery CD’s and journals, and numerous articles. She speaks nationally on health related topics and youth violence. She is an expert witness in the areas of youth and adult violence and sexual offending. Her latest book is coming soon: Fallen Angels. For more information go to http://www.drkathyseifert.com

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