“This Place Will Wear You Down”: Examining the Organizational and Contagion Effects of Stress on Correctional Staff Working Overtime in U.S. Prisons

• Published date: 01 November 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/10439862241277277
• Author: Daniel O’Connell,Emalie Rell,Darryl Chambers,Christy Visher,Mackenzie Niness,Adam Gavnik,Chelsi Lamberton
• Date: 01 November 2024

https://doi.org/10.1177/10439862241277277

Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice

2024, Vol. 40(4) 640 –661

© The Author(s) 2024

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DOI: 10.1177/10439862241277277

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Original Article

“This Place Will Wear

You Down”: Examining

the Organizational and

Contagion Effects of Stress on

Correctional Staff Working

Overtime in U.S. Prisons

Daniel O’Connell1, Emalie Rell1, Darryl Chambers1,

Christy Visher1, Mackenzie Niness1,

Adam Gavnik1, and Chelsi Lamberton1

Abstract

Prisons are stressful environments for both people living and working in them. Extant

literature suggests that correctional staff have increased stress levels that lead to

compromised physical health, mental health, social relationships, and increased

emotional strain. This article reports on a project utilizing a modified Participatory

Action Research (PAR) approach to understand the mechanisms that lead to

increased stress levels among correctional officers who reported working overtime.

The analysis utilizes organizational justice and social comparison frameworks to

explore predictors of individual levels of stress among correctional officers working

overtime in a Delaware prison. The findings indicate that individual-level stress spreads

through perceptions of coworker’s stress and is inversely related to perceived levels

of organizational justice. This analysis is useful to prison administrators, leadership, in

suggesting avenues to improve the climate of correctional environments.

Keywords

prison, stress, overtime, organizational justice

1University of Delaware, Newark, USA

Corresponding Author:

Daniel O’Connell, Center for Drug & Health Studies, University of Delaware, 257 East Main Street, Suite

110, Newark, DE 19716, USA.

Email: oconnell@udel.edu

1277277CCJXXX10.1177/10439862241277277Journal of Contemporary Criminal JusticeO’Connell et al.

research-article2024

O’Connell et al. 641

Those who work in prisons experience a high-stress, trauma-filled environment out of

sight of the public eye (Ferdik & Smith, 2017). In such total institutions, prisons

develop unique cultures that are influenced by the beliefs and experiences of those

who live and work within them (Schoenfeld & Everly, 2023). Prisons are typically

traumatic and highly stressful environments that take a toll on both the individuals

incarcerated and those employed there (Schoenfeld & Everly, 2023; Wooldredge,

2020). This implies that prison culture is, at least in part, shaped by the stress prison

causes. For example, literature suggests that culture forms in response to an individual

or groups’ adaptation to a new environment (Irwin & Cressey, 1962; Lenski & Lenski,

1978; Wooldredge, 2020). However, there are internal and external factors that influ-

ence the prison adaptation process, and these factors are sometimes created by the

characteristics of a specific institution. Adaptation factors include a variety of indi-

vidual and structural experiences that happen before and during the incarceration pro-

cess, but there are also sources of stress that are intrinsic to correctional environments

or may vary depending on location (e.g., country, state, or even county) (Cate, 2022).

Typically, adaptation is discussed from the incarcerated individual lens, but correc-

tional officers also experience adaptation to the prison culture. The concept of organi-

zational justice is often used when discussing correctional officer adjustment to the

prison environment (Boateng & Hsieh, 2019; Lambert, 2003; Lambert & Hogan,

2010). This concept alludes to the mechanisms of procedural and distributive justice

that predict employee’s perceived justice and equity in the workplace (Greenberg,

1987). Organizational justice accounts for behaviors and attitudes toward the work-

place which are influenced by a number of adaptation factors such as interactions with

the incarcerated population (Lambert, 2003).

Furthermore, interactions between correctional staff and incarcerated persons can

create a cycle in which the stress and trauma from one group impacts the other in a

feedback loop (Walters, 2022). One way to interrupt this loop is to attempt to improve

correctional staff’s working experience. If correctional staff’s stress and well-being

can be improved, then the impact may “roll downhill” and help improve the overall

culture of a specific institution. Such changes may help to not only improve the insti-

tutional culture, but also the well-being of staff and incarcerated populations.

This article reports on a project in a Delaware prison that utilized Participatory

Action Research (PAR) methods to examine, and hopefully improve upon, the experi-

ences of those working and living in a medium-sized maximum-security prison. This

article assesses the correlates of stress among correctional officers through an organi-

zational justice lens and conceptualizes how a contagion effect of stress exacerbates

the stress of individual officers. We propose that correctional staff stress is influenced

by organizational justice, or the extent to which people feel fairly treated at work (see

Lambert et al., 2023). Furthermore, we propose that stress exhibits a contagion effect,

in which the stress experienced by individuals increases the stress levels of those

around them. We explore this using survey data collected in a mid-size, maximum-

security prison in 2023. The analyses indicate that perceived stress of coworkers was

the largest predictor of increased individual stress levels among correctional staff

working overtime. Perceived measures of procedural justice significantly decreased