The Nature of Work-Family Conflict among Correctional Staff: An Exploratory Examination

Abstract

Work in corrections is generally seen as a stressful occupation. There has been a fair amount of research to date on the possible causes of stress among correctional staff. Nevertheless, the issue of work-family conflict has not received much attention in the correctional literature. For the present article, a survey of correctional staff at a Midwestern prison was conducted in order to determine the effects of measures for educational level, gender, work position, race, and supervisory status. Four different forms of work-family conflict were extracted (time-based, strain-based, harm caused by, and family-on-work), and time-based and strain-based were found to be significantly related to personal characteristics. Specifically, correctional officers were impacted by work-family conflict more than other staff, as were staff who had less tenure and those without a college degree.

Understanding Fundamental Phenomena Affecting the Water Conservation Technology Adoption of Residential Consumers Using Agent-Based Modeling

“…Exploratory analysis [53,54], utilizes computational models and simulation experiments to conduct scenario analysis and evaluate the behavior of complex systems [47,55]. Exploratory analysis has been utilized in different studies (e.g., [56,57]) for the evaluation of environmental policies. Unlike traditional simulation approaches, exploratory analysis does not aim to predict the behavior of a system and does not intend to optimize a system.…”

The Relationship Between Work–Family Conflict, Correctional Officer Job Stress, and Job Satisfaction

“…The current study builds on the limited but critical studies of work-family conflict in the correctional officer workforce Lambert et al, 2004;Lambert et al, 2006). We follow the recommendation of to focus on precursory psychosocial states of job burnout by measuring job stress and job satisfaction among correctional officers.…”

“…Lambert, Hogan, and Altheimer (2010) recommended considering tenure as a totality of time that an employee had worked in corrections in lieu of time spent working in a particular position. Finally, existing studies have found stress levels vary by both gender and age of the individual suggesting these factors should also be accounted for in analyses (Cheeseman et al, 2011;Dial et al, 2010;Griffin, 2006;Lambert et al, 2004).…”

“…Following the work of Lambert and his colleagues Lambert et al, 2004;Lambert et al, 2006), work-family conflict was operationalized using three scales: Time-, Strain-, and Behavior-Based Work-Family Conflicts (see Appendix A for the items and factor loadings for each scale). Since items from the work of Lambert and his colleagues (2004,2006) were utilized, this study utilized a confirmatory factor analysis approach.…”

Correctional Officers and Domestic Violence: Experiences and Attitudes

“…Studies allude to stress impairing correctional officers' family life, but focus on relationship conflict arising from work stress. For example, Lambert et al (2004) examined how work-on-family conflict negatively impacted the behaviors of correctional officers by asking questions such as, "I frequently argue with my spouse/ family members about my job" and "I find that my job has negatively affected my home life." Despite the connection researchers have drawn between a stressful work environment and a negative home life, no research has yet been conducted into whether a stressful work environment is related to a violent home life for correctional officers' families.…”