Correctional Officers Fight Dissatisfaction, Tension At Rural Prisons

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Overcrowding and inadequate facilities are frequently cited as problems of the prison system nationwide, but a University of Arkansas researcher says the rural location of many prisons adds further stress to the system, exacerbating tensions between correctional officers and inmates.

Denise Huggins, assistant professor of criminal justice, spent the year 2000 conducting research at two women’s state prisons in Texas. She surveyed both prisoners and officers and conducted follow-up interviews with individuals from each population. Among her findings was the fact that correctional officers expressed high degrees of job dissatisfaction, despite asserting that prison work represented the best jobs available to them. Huggins recently presented this portion of her research at the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences meeting in Boston.

According to Huggins, job dissatisfaction is one of many problems that arise from the isolated locations of state prisons. Often housed in small towns with populations no greater than 25,000, prisons find it difficult to recruit career corrections officers to work at their facilities. Furthermore, the low pay offered by prison systems attracts only local citizens, who have little access to jobs with comparable benefits packages or salaries.

"What you have is a group of people who don’t want to work in prisons, but because it’s the best paying job in town, they end up doing it," Huggins said. "You not only have the situation of correctional officers who hate their jobs, but you have the additional stress of having to take up the slack because the prison system lacks so many officers."

Huggins’ research shows that isolated locations combined with undesirable working conditions have led to accelerated turnover rates at many state prisons — 23 percent in Texas and as high as 50 percent in other states. At the two correctional units she studied, Huggins found both facilities understaffed — a fact that correlated with low morale, particularly among officers who had worked at the prisons five years or longer.

Because of high turnover, approximately 40 percent of Texas correctional officers have no more than three years of experience. And of those who stay longer than five years, the vast majority are local residents who live near the facility in which they work, Huggins found.

The result is a racially homogenous, rural working population, poorly paid, inadequately trained and forced to put in long hours at a job that was not their first choice of careers, Huggins said. When placed among a racially diverse inmate population, largely drawn from urban centers, this rural workforce experiences stresses and hostilities that may lead them to abuse their authoritative power or, conversely, to adopt a callous, careless attitude toward their jobs. Either reaction can amplify tensions between correctional officers and the prisoners under their watch.

"Several of the officers I interviewed said that working for the justice system was the only opportunity they had for a real future or retirement. The lack of choice made them feel less than satisfied with their positions, and some said they felt trapped, working daily with a group of individuals whom the general population would consider undesirable," Huggins said. "The lack of enthusiasm for working at a correctional facility appeared to create anger and frustration for some of them, and they commonly projected those feelings onto the inmates."

While relocating prison facilities to more populated and desirable communities would likely help attract qualified and committed correctional officers, a variety of factors — including the cost of building new prisons and the stigma attached them — prevents relocation from being a reasonable solution. But Huggins believes other steps can be taken to improve working conditions for current officers and to make a career in corrections more attractive to prospective employees.

First, she asserts that higher pay would make work in the corrections system competitive with other fields. Starting salaries at Texas prisons hover at $20,500. Raising the base salary could draw greater numbers of employees even to rural areas, Huggins suggested. In addition, increased salaries could ease financial stresses that contribute to low morale among correctional officers and could cause officers to invest more pride in their work.

Low pay is not the only drawback that keeps workers out of corrections. The stigma associated with working in a prison makes these jobs an unsavory option to many individuals, Huggins said. Recruiting new employees may depend on raising the reputation of correctional officers as a whole.

"The image of correctional officers needs to be improved. The only way to do that is to make them more professional, and the only way to raise professional standards is through increased education and training," Huggins said.

Shortages in the workforce have caused many state correction systems to abbreviate their employee training programs. In Texas, many officers enter their jobs with fewer than six weeks of preparation. In Louisiana, officers receive only two weeks of training. Huggins stresses that correctional officers must be given far greater instruction and administrative support if they are to perform their jobs at professional levels.

"If states want to keep people on the job, they need to give them education and a reason for staying," Huggins said. "Improving the working conditions for officers can go a long way toward better serving everyone in the correctional system — inmates and officers alike."