Social Support and Life Satisfaction Among Midwestern Correctional Staff

ABSTRACT

Prison work is demanding and can take a toll on staff. Improving the life satisfaction of correctional staff is one way for prisons to invest in the valuable resource that is their staff; however, in order to effect meaningful and lasting change, research is needed that examines how different workplace variables are linked to satisfaction with life. The current study explored how social support was related to the life satisfaction of correctional staff at a U.S. Midwestern prison. The current study measured family support, coworker support, supervisor support, and management support. Multivariate regression analysis indicated that family support and management support had significant positive relationships with life satisfaction, while coworker and supervisor support had nonsignificant associations. Increasing social support for correctional staff, particularly in terms of family/friends support and management support, is recommended.

KEYWORDS:

• Correctional staff
• life satisfaction
• social support
• prison staff

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The current study only used two items to measure correctional staff life satisfaction due to constraints on the length of the survey, and this is a limitation; however, past correctional studies have used a limited number of items to measure life satisfaction. For example, E. G. Lambert (2010) measured life satisfaction with two items; E. G. Lambert, Boateng, et al. (2022) used three items; E. G. Lambert et al. (2019) used three items; E. G. Lambert and Hogan (2011) used two items; E. G. Lambert et al. (2010) used two items; and E. G. Lambert et al. (2005) used two items. Further, the two life satisfaction items in the current study were answered using different response options, as was originally done by Quinn and Staines (1979). To determine whether the different response options may have influenced the results, a new standardized variable for life satisfaction was created using factor analysis, and the regression analysis was rerun using this new variable. The results for the standardized life satisfaction measure were similar in terms of significant predictors, size of effect of significant predictors, and the R-squared value.