U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government, Department of Justice.

NCJRS Virtual Library

The Virtual Library houses over 235,000 criminal justice resources, including all known OJP works.
Click here to search the NCJRS Virtual Library

Impact of Work-Family Conflict on Correctional Staff: A Preliminary Study

NCJ Number
216459
Journal
Criminology & Criminal Justice Volume: 6 Issue: 4 Dated: November 2006 Pages: 371-387
Author(s)
Eric G. Lambert; Nancy L. Hogan; Scott D. Camp; Lois A. Ventura
Date Published
November 2006
Length
17 pages
Annotation
This study examined the impact of four dimensions of work-family conflict (WFC) on the job stress, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment of correctional staff.
Abstract
The results support the hypothesis that WFC has an impact on the job stress, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment of correctional staff. Specifically, findings indicated that strain-based work on family conflict had a significant effect on job stress while both strain-based and behavior-based work on family conflict had a significant effect on job satisfaction among correctional staff. The organizational commitment of correctional staff was significantly impacted by time-based work on family conflict, behavior-based work on family conflict, and family on work conflict. The ordinary least squares (OSL) regression models indicated that the WFC measures had a greater impact on job stress and job satisfaction than they did on organizational commitment. Personality characteristics of the correctional staff had little impact on any of the job outcome measures. The findings suggest that correctional agencies should understand the interaction between family and job stress and should, when possible, provide staff with greater flexibility in determining their schedules and provide staff with counseling to deal with strain- and behavior-based conflict. Participants were 160 correctional staff at a high security private prison who volunteered to complete a survey measuring job stress, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and 4 dimensions of WFC: (1) time-based work on family conflict; (2) strain-based work on family conflict; (3) behavior-based work on family conflict; and (4) family on work conflict. The relationships among the main variables were analyzed using OLS regression models and confirmatory factor analysis. Future research should compare the impact of WFC on private versus public prison staff. Tables, notes, references, appendix