Criminology Research Council grant ; (20/88)
The problems faced by the penal system and ultimately by prison officers appear to have increased as a result of developments that have occurred in the past few years. Examples of such changes include:
- overcrowding in prisons;
- the media focus on the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody and recent escapes from prisons;
- the nature of the prison population is changing; and
- there have been significant changes to the management practices in prisons in each State of Australia with the introduction of 'Unit Management'.
Given the nature of the job, and the specific stressors or changes which are imposed from time to time, many questions arise. For example, is it the case that prison officers report more 'stress' than the general population, experience more physical health problems than the average person, job satisfaction and its relation to stress and health, officers' personality. Can selection methods be refined to exclude those less well suited to the nature of the job.
Many of these questions are addressed in this study. In addition, the model of stress proposed by Karasek which claims that job strain is influenced by the interaction of three job characteristics: job demands, supports and constraints. A fourth variable 'personality' was added to the model. One aim was to examine the moderating influence of negative effect and job characteristics on physical and mental well-being. Specifically, it was predicted that job demands and negative effect would combine, interactively, to account for a significant proportion of the variability in measures of mental and physical well-being.
The report contains the results of a survey of 391 prison officers conducted in 1990. In broad terms the data reveal that the prison officers participating in the study were physically and mentally less healthy than what would be expected of a sample taken from the wider community. In addition, there was also a significant sex difference in officer well-being, with female officers fairing significantly better than their male counterparts.
Differences between prisons were evident. Officers in medium security prisons had higher levels of job satisfaction and exhibited fewer symptoms of physical ill-health. They also perceived their working environment as being more supportive of them and less constraining. This pattern of results is in contradiction of the data from a smaller study in 1991 where it was found that officers in a medium/maximum security prison were the least healthy. Given that officer health seems to be related to job perceptions, it is suggested that the better health, observed in the medium security prisons, may reflect a successful transition to unit management practices. Other prisons have not yet had as much experience with this system.
Officers' perception of job demands as well as work and non-work social supports were found to have a significant impact on work attitudes, absenteeism rates, mental and physical well-being and health-related behaviours. Negative effect was also found to influence these variables, but its influence was most notable when it was found to interact with job demands and non-work supports.
Several practical and theoretical implications follow from the results of this study. One suggestion is that selection strategies may be usefully employed to reduce overall levels of stress in the officer population. Measures of negative effect may prove to be particularly useful in this regard. This strategy, however, will only be of benefit to those officers employed in the future. A second outcome is that the degree to which work and non-work supports can be manipulated, or increased, will have a positive impact on well-being and attitude. As such, this strategy offers a proactive management strategy which will have benefit for current as well as future employees.
It is also clear from the study that additional refinement and standardisation of the instruments which measure job characteristics is needed. The various facets of job demands, supports and constraints need to be investigated more thoroughly to determine their underlying factorial structure. More refined measures will lead to better predictions and, perhaps, more effective intervention strategies. The absence of generally accepted and standardised measures of job characteristics makes it difficult to compare studies on the absolute levels of adversity and subsequent strain experienced by job incumbents. Until better instruments are developed, it is important that more longitudinal research is undertaken as this would be beneficial in helping to determine the causal influences of job characteristics on changing levels of strain.