Understanding Perceptions of Supervision and Organizational Operations Among Prison Teachers

• Author: Brett Garland,William McCarty
• DOI: 10.1177/0734016811407307
• Published date: 01 September 2011
• Date: 01 September 2011
• Subject Matter: Articles

Understanding Perceptions

of Supervision and

Organizational Operations

Among Prison Teachers:

A Multilevel Analysis

Brett Garland

1

and William McCarty

2

Abstract

Prison educators and vocational trainers are instrumental in prisons given their roles in teaching and

preparing prisoners for a successful reintegration into the community. Although prior research has

explored the impact of vocational and educational programs on offender recidivism, scant attention

has been paid to the work experiences of prison educators and instructors. The current study thus

examines perceptions of supervision and organizational operations among a sample of 263

educational and vocational staff employed in the Federal Bureau of Prisons. A key contribution of

this study is the inclusion of new organizational-level variables (e.g., a prison’s average institutional

tenure and average institutional commitment) as predictors of perceptions of the prison work

environment. Hierarchical Linear Models (HLM) identified that efficacy with inmates was the stron-

gest predictor of perceptions of both supervision and organizational operations. Age, supervisory

status, Hispanic ethnicity, and the average institutional tenure were also significant predictors of

both outcome measures. Security level, inmate gender composition, average institutional commit-

ment, the amount of contact with inmates, and race had different effects on the dependent variables.

The implications of these findings and directions for future research are discussed.

Keywords

prison, supervision, education, treatment

The emergence of teachers in American prisons dates back to the 1870s when the first reforma-

tory in Elmira, New York, the symbol of Progressive Era prisons, instituted education and vocational

training as its programmatic cornerstones (Pisciotta, 1994). Although education and vocational

training were touted by Progressive reformers as vital to a productive prison experience, these

1

Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminology, Missouri State University, Springfield, MO, USA

2

Department of Criminology, Law and Justice, University of Illinois-Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

Corresponding Author:

Brett Garland, Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminology, Missouri State University, 901 South National

Avenue, Springfield, MO 65897, USA

Email: BrettGarland@MissouriState.edu

Criminal Justice Review

36(3) 291-311

ª2011 Georgia State University

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DOI: 10.1177/0734016811407307

http://cjr.sagepub.com

components did not immediately secure a central role in penal practice until the 1960s and 1970s

(Ryan & McCabe, 1994). By 2000, all federal prisons and 91%of state prisons had some form of

education program in operation. During the same year, vocational training programs existed in

94%of federal and 56%of state prisons (Harlow, 2003). Prison inmates clearly are in need of such

educationaland vocational assistance.A total of 40%of stateand 27%of federal inmates have attained

less than a high school diploma or its equivalent, compared to 18%of the general U.S. population

(Harlow, 2003). Fortunately, reviewsof the research on educational and vocational programs indicate

that they generallyhelp to reduce offender recidivism,and these programs may be especially effective

when they intensively target the most educationally disadvantaged offenders (Criminal Justice Center,

1994; Ward, 2009; Wilson, Gallagher, & MacKenzie, 2000).

Despite the promise of prison education and training, educators and vocational trainers have

received limited attention. Teachers are motivated to work in prisons for a number of reasons,

including the pay, rehabilitating inmates, gaining experience to get a more traditional education job,

and delivering education to underrepresented groups (Osberg & Fraley, 1993; Tewksbury, 1993a).

While most prison teachers did not originally want to teach in a correctional environment and landed

there somewhat by accident (Wright, 2005), studies suggest that correctional teachers tend to be

satisfied with their jobs and committed to their prisons of employment (Garland, McCarty, & Zhao,

2009; King, Hendley, & Ray, 1979; Tewksbury, 1993b). Degraw (1987), however, found that 60%

of correctional teachers in 35 states were thinking about leaving their current positions but only 20%

had plans to completely exit the corrections field.

Past studies have routinely identified the quality of supervision and organizational operations in

prisons as having a significant impact on worker attitudes and outcomes (Armstrong & Griffin,

2004; Cullen, Link, Wolfe, & Frank, 1985; Garland, 2004; Gerstein, Topp, & Correll, 1987;

Lindquist & Whitehead, 1986). Interestingly, Garland et al.’s (2009) recent study confirmed that less

favorable perceptions of supervision among correctional teachers were predictors of lower job satis-

faction, institution commitment, and commitment to the prison system, but it remains unknown how

perceptions of supervision and organizational operations are formed specifically for prison teachers.

This lack of knowledge is troubling as efforts to improve supervisory practices and organizational

functioning for prison teaching should be informed to some degree by the teachers themselves. The

current study begins to fill this knowledge gap by exploring how perceptions of supervision and

organizational operations among 263 federal prison teachers are influenced by institutional, work-

related, and personal factors usingHierarchical Linear Models (HLM). Moreover, this study analyzes

the impact of two institutional-level measures of social climate which have yet to be examined in

prison staffresearch—a prison’s averageinstitutional tenure and averagelevel of institutionalcommit-

ment. The goal of this research is to provide correctional policymakers and managers with a starting

point for crafting guidelines to improve the quality of supervision and organizational effectiveness for

prison teachers.

The Impact of Organization and Supervision on Prison Staff

Deficiencies in organizational operations and supervision have proven to be formidable obstacles

to positive work experiences among prison staff. Role problems such as role conflict and role ambi-

guity have posed serious difficulties for correctional workers (Schaufeli & Peeters, 2000). Role

problems, for example, were the greatest occupational stressor in studies of southern prison guards

(Cullen et al., 1985), correctional officers, and treatment staff in a southwest state (Armstrong &

Griffin, 2004), and New Jersey prison guards (Cheek & Miller, 1983). A lack of role clarity has also

been associated with the burnout of correctional officers in the South (Lindquist & Whitehead,

1986). In addition, the amount of authority that staff have in a prison organization and the control

292 Criminal Justice Review 36(3)