A COMPARATIVE QUALITY OF WORK LIFE ANALYSIS OF CUSTODIAL AND SOCIAL SERVICE PERSONNEL IN SECURITY AND TREATMENT ORIENTED PRISONS

This dissertation is a comparative study of personnel from two prisons--one having a more custodial orientation, the other placing more emphasis on treatment functions. The thirteen hypotheses explore the differences between custodial and social service employees in the following areas: job enrichment and satisfaction, work motivation, and attitudes toward providing helping services to inmates. Data was collected by means of a job enrichment questionnaire, individual interviews, participant observation, and data feedback and discussion with the top managers of both prisons. Major findings include the following: (a) social service personnel within and across sites rated their jobs as significantly more enriched than did custodial staff; (b) correctional officers (COs) in the treatment oriented prison perceived themselves as having significantly more job enrichment and satisfaction than did respective staff at the custodial facility; (c) in general, both social service and custodial employees across sites derive their primary job satisfaction from interpersonal and helping activities that involve inmates; (d) personnel in the treatment facility (both custodial and social service) express a significantly higher need for intrinsic job attributes and a lower need for material job factors, in contrast with personnel working at custodial prison; (e) receptivity to social service programs and to COs taking a more active helping role are associated with both job and setting--that is, social service personnel across sites and COs in the treatment oriented facility are more supportive of both measures; (f) similarly, authoritarianism is a function of both job and site, and it is negatively correlated with receptivity to social service programs; (g) among line COs from both sites, there is no relationship between receptivity to social service programs and the number of years working within the correctional field; (h) COs working in the treatment oriented prison do not experience additional role confusion in attempting to realize the dual goals of treatment and security. The above differences can be explained with respect to the degree of activism and personal satisfaction that accompany the job respective job performance of custodial and social service personnel. Social service functions are more likely to encompass the criteria that constitute job enrichment. . . . (Author\u27s abstract exceeds stipulated maximum length. Discontinued here with permission of author.) UM