Job attitudes among higher-custody state prison management personnel: A cross-sectional comparative assessment

Research on workplace attitudes among corrections personnel has focused almost exclusively on front-line officers and has largely overlooked managerial personnel. The study reported here sought to address this void in the literature by collecting data from a sample of supervisory personnel and administrative staff employed in eleven adult male, higher-custody state prisons located throughout the United States. The researchers found significant differences between prison personnel employed in facilities that practiced different managerial approaches. In particular, prison personnel employed in facilities where managerial practices were guided by either highly rigid and formalized administrative elements or strict responsibility-oriented features experienced lower levels of satisfaction with work and higher levels of role strain than their counterparts employed by prisons that practiced more balanced, middle ground managerial approaches.