‘In this job, you cannot have time for family’: Work–family conflict among prison officers in Ghana

Abstract

This paper documents the experience of work-family conflict (WFC) among prison officers in Ghana. Although the term WFC has been used in relation to prison officers in the UK (Crawley, 2002) and the US (Triplett et al., 1999), the context of WFC in Ghana is unusual. In this predominantly collectivist culture, family responsibilities include obligations to the extended family. WFC is mainly unidirectional, with interference running from work to the family. Officers are thus impaired in fulfilling their family responsibilities, which consequently impairs their daily work and mental well-being. The 'crisis controlling' or 'paramilitary' organisational structure of the Ghana Prisons Service (GPS) makes it very difficult for the work domain of prison officers to accommodate family responsibilities. Female officers appear to bear a heavier WFC burden than male officers, mainly on account of their traditionally unpaid housekeeping role in addition to their paid employment in a masculine organisational culture. The findings are significant, as they show that the promulgation of family-friendly policies to alleviate WFC-associated stress lies in the hands of the GPS, since WFC emanates solely from the work domain.

Work–Family Conflict and Job Outcomes Among Prison Officers in Ghana: A Test of Mediation and Moderation Processes

“…Given that most previous studies on work-family conflict have been conducted in Western countries, the present study's findings suggest that the negative impact of work-family conflict on correctional staff job attitudes also has applicability in non-Western contexts, particularly in the sub-Saharan African context. This study also extends an initial qualitative effort by Akoensi (2017), which documented experiences of work-family conflict among prison officers in Ghana, by demonstrating the adverse impact of work-family conflict on job attitudes among prison officers. As members of a collectivist society, Ghanaians tend to place greater emphasis on maintaining harmonious family relationships, which typically include the extended family.…”

“…Michel et al, 2011). In Ghana, Akoensi (2017) noted that the nature of a prison officer's job makes work-family conflict unidirectional, with conflict originating mainly from the work domain to the family domain because the Prison Service makes total claims on officers' loyalty to the organization at the expense of their family commitments. Secondly, WFC and FWC have been found to have different antecedents and consequences, with antecedents and outcomes of WFC located mainly in the work domain, whereas antecedents and outcomes of FWC are mainly family-related (Michel et al, 2011;Shockly & Singla, 2011).…”

“…overtime and lack of autonomy) and strain-(e.g. accommodation and deployment) based demands were formidable and impacted prison officers to an extent resulting in job stress (Akoensi, 2017). The literature on work-family conflict offers a variety of opportunities for improving employees' ability to combine work and family responsibilities.…”

“…Additionally, excessive overcrowding (currently at 46.5% over capacity), coupled with staff shortages, means that prison officers in Ghana typically work long hours beyond the required eight-hour shift period with mandatory unpaid overtime, so as to ensure 24-h security. Although most Ghanaian officers have significant family responsibilities owing to societal emphasis on large family sizes, extended family relations, and marriage and procreation in Ghanaian culture, formal family-friendly policies are limited to the statutory 12-week paid maternity leave (Akoensi, 2017;Annor, 2014). The absence of paternity leave, making fathers unable to contribute meaningfully to childcare and household responsibilities, further perpetuates traditional gender values.…”

Impacts of Professionalization and Wellbeing Policies on Scottish Prison Workers

“…Criminal justice and profession-specific journals have given some attention to prison workers' wellbeing, including their experiences of work-related stress (Carlson, Anson, and Thomas 2003;Harvey 2014;Lovell and Brown 2017;Ricciardelli, Power, and Medeiros 2018;Steiner and Wooldredge 2015), work-life balance (Kinman et al, 2017) and impacts of the job role on family relationships (Akoensi 2018). 1 The most prominent study of UK prison workers' wellbeing is Liebling's longitudinal quality of life survey, which has been generating data since 2006 (Liebling and Arnold 2004;Liebling, Price, and Shefer 2011: 210).…”