AJCJ, Vol XVl, No. 1 (1991)

ALIENATION AND THE CORRECTIONAL OFFICER: A MULTIVARIATE ANALYSIS

Stephen Waiters, Ph.D. Department of Criminal Justice

University of Wisconsin-Platteville

ABSTRACT

The increased pressures which have been placed upon correctional institutions in the 1980's have made the retention of quality correctional officers imperative. Yet many of these officers find prison work to be an unsatisfying experience. This paper attempts to measure levels of alienation among correctional officers and identify factors which may be related to its occurrence.

The amount of alienation experienced by 126 correctional officers at a Western state prison was measured utilizing Dean's Alienation Scale. Alienation levels were found to be related primarily to institutional, and opposed to non-institutional, variables. The implications for correctional administration are discussed.

INTRODUCTION

The subculture of correctional officers is easily ignored. It exists within the confines of correctional institutions, places specifically constructed to segregate the individuals within the prison environment correctional officers are literally "locked-up" with inmates - individuals whom society has defined as undesirable and has exiled from its midst. Society seems to care little about offenders once they are incarcerated, and in a similar manner appears to have disregarded their keepers. While police officers garner a certain amount of respect from a society that views them as their protectors, correctional officers are any times seen as differing very little from those they control. Even when compared to other functionaries in the correctional system, correctional officers are not viewed in a positive light (Berger, 1978).

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Correctional officers work at a thankless task in a depressing physical environment. They supervise a group of "correctional clients" who neither desire nor appreciate their efforts, and work for an administration that often views the role of correctional officers from a different perspective than often views the role of correctional officers from a different perspective than do the officers themselves. It is little wonder then that the turnover rates of correctional officers are quite high - a common symptom of those who may be alienated from their occupational role t.

This research attempts to measure levels of alienation among correctional officers at a Western state prison. Additionally, the relationship between alienation and structural variables in the correctional environment will be discerned, examined, and explained.

ALIENATION

The concept of alienation has long been of interest to social scientists, both as a theoretical construct and as a concrete social problem. The multidimensionality of alienation was explored by Seeman (1959) who noted that alienation, as a concept, had vive different meanings: powerlessness, normlessness, meaninglessness, isolation, and self-estrangement. This model of alienation has been applied to the correctional officer environment by Poole and Ragolia (1981), whose findings are discussed later in this research.

A later examination of alienation as a multidimensional construct was proposed by Dean (1961). Dean states that alienation is a general syndrome comprised of three components: powerlessness, normlessness, and social isolation. Powerlessness is traced by Dean to the works of Marx and Weber, and refers to the individual's inability to control his destiny or his work. Thus Dean's definition of powerlessness stresses the centrality of work to alienation. Normlessness is defined by Dean in the traditional Durkheimian manner, being related to Durheim's concept of anomie. Both purposelessness and a conflict of norms are considered subtypes of normlessness. The final component of alienation discussed by Dean is social isolation. This concept too is derived from Durkheim, and refers to a feeling of separation from either the group or group standards. All three components are conceptualized as being interrelated constituents of alienation. As Dean's model is theoretically compelling, and because Dean has developed a corresponding attitude scale to measure alienation and its components, this model will be utilized in this research.

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The possibility that correctional officers might be characterized as alienated has been explored by some criminologists. Toch and Klofas (1982) determined that alienation is related to two factors; the degree of urbanness and the length of service. Correctional officers at urban institutions were more alienated than those at rural institutions, while those officers with 5-19 years of service were more alienated than other officer groups. In the research mentioned above, Poole and Regoli (1981) found that alienation arises as a result of conflicts between correctional officers and inmates, superiors, and other correctional officers. A sense of "calling" to the field of corrections and a belief in autonomy were both found in further studies by Poole and Regoli (1980a, 1983) to be correlated with low levels of alienation among prison guards. Carroll (1980) states that correctional officers are characterized by anomie, which he found to be related to both the conflicting goals of custody and rehabilitation and to a perception of powerlessness. Both Wicks (1981) and Lombardo (1981) observe that alienation may be the outcome of a feeling of powerlessness among correctional officers. As Lombardo (1981; 113) observed:

In perceiving himself in lacking responsibilities and decision-making power, the officer sees himself as unable to participate meaningfully in the functioning of the institution. The officers feel they are unable to enforce decisions they do make because they lack support from all sections of the institution. A feeling of individual isolation surrounds the corrections officer. A lack of opportunities to provide effective input into decisions affecting management policy and his immediate work process further separates the individual officer from his work. In short, the officer experiences the classical symptoms of alienation: he feels divorced from his workplace and those with whom he works.

METHODOLOGY

Questionnaires were sent to all 193 correctional officers employed at a state prison in the western United States. This institution is multiclassificational in nature, housing approximately 750 inmates in minimum, medium, and maximum security units. The prison became operational in 1979 and is the only major adult correctional facility in the state. The questionnaires were mailed directly to each officer through the prison mail system and were returned directly to this researcher by means of an enclosed, stamped envelope to assure confidentiality to the

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respondents. One hundred and twenty-six officers returned completed questionnaires (65.3 %).2

Alienation levels were measured by using Dean's Alienation Scale (Dean, 1961; see also Miller, 1970). This scale is comprised of 24 Likert scale items: nine powerlessness items, six normles~ess items, and nine social isolation items. These subscales are combined to create an alienation score. The original scale allowed for five possible responses to each item, but in order to allow the respondents a greater range of choice and to increase dispersion it was expanded to allow for eight possible responses. 3

The independent variables utilized in this study can be classified as either institutional or non-institutional variables. Institutional variables are those factors which may be related to alienation that are prison specific. These variables include an officer's custody orientation (i.e., a preference for custody versus treatment in corrections), rank, years of service as a correctional officer, the security level in which one has generally worked, and whether one has experienced a career turning point. Non-institutional variables are those which have been thought to be related to alienation, but are not related to the prison environment. These include age, education, marital status, and family size (Dean, 1961; Mottaz, 1983; Seybolt and Gruenfeld, 1976; Hajda, 1961). This dichotomy was developed to aid in determining whether alienation arises from the unique work environment of correctional officers, or is the result of conditions external to the workplace.

An officer's custody orientation was determined through the use of a scale developed by Peele and Regoli (1980b). This scale contains four Likert scale items with five possible responses. As in the case of Dean's Alienation Scale this scale too was modified to allow for eight possible responses to broaden the respondents' range of choices and to increase dispersion. 4 A high custody score reflects an officer's preference for a more punitive approach to corrections, while a low custody orientation score can be interpreted as indicating a receptiveness to correctional practices such as rehabilitation and/or reintegration.

Whether or not an officer had experienced a career turning point was ascertained through an open-ended question. A career turning point was defined as a particular experience that an officer could identify that changed his attitude toward his job as a correctional officer. Those officers who responded "yes" when asked if they had experienced what they perceived as a turning point in their careers were then asked to describe the experience.

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The data were analyzed utilizing stepwise multiple regression. Variables were excluded from the regression equation when they failed to achieve a .05 level of significance. Non-interval variables were replaced by dichotomized dummy variables (code 0/1) when included in the stepwise regression analysis (see Blalock, 1979; 534-538 and Norusis, 1983, 154). These variables were: having experienced a career turning point (no/yes), rank (correctional officers I and II / sergeants, correctional technicians, lieutenants, and captains), security level (less than maximum security/maximum security), sex (male/female), marital status (unmarried/married), and family size (two or less children/more than two children).

ANALYSIS

An analysis of the data uncovers several variables which are directly related to alienation. These variables, in descending order of the strength of relationship, are as follows:

1. age

2. having experienced a career turning point

3. length of service

4. security level worked

5. custody orientation

The data for these variable relationships are detailed in Table 1.

Table 1 Stepwise Multiple Regression for Alienation

by Selected Independent Variables

Variable

Variables in the Equation

Beta F Sig. F

Age -.4624 25.155 .0000 Career Turning Point .2351 7.864 .0059 Length of Service .2190 5.972 .0161 Security Level -. 1921 5.093 .0259 Custody Orientation .1626 3.868 .0517

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R 2 = .2845 Variables Not in the Equation

Sex -. 1327 2.595 .1100 Marital Status -.0850 1.037 .3108 Educational Level -.0784 .926 .3380 Family Size .0432 .290 .5916 Rank -.0157 .030 .8638

One of the more interesting findings of this research concerns the importance of age as a factor in the alienation levels of correctional officers. Younger officers manifest significantly higher alienation scores than do older correctional officers. While Mottaz's (1983) research concerning alienation among police officers found a positive correlation between age and alienation, the direction of this relationship among the prison guards under study is in the opposite direction. Youthfulness among correctional officers has been shown to be related to both alienation and powerlessness(Waiters, 1988a, 1988b), to job dissatisfaction (Hepburn and Jurik, 1986), and to increased stress and "burnout" (Whitehead and Lindquist, 1986). This strong relationship between youth and alienation may pose a problem for correctional administrators. For example, those administrators in systems which prefer to recruit younger correctional officer trainees may have trouble keeping these individuals motivated and satisfied with their jobs, and may have difficulty in retaining them at all.

Experiencing an incident in one's correctional career that is defined by the officer as being a career turning point is also strongly tied to high levels of alienation. A turning point could be categorized into several types, most (83 %) of which were negative. 5 While these individual types of turning points were not included separately in the regression analysis, the category of turning point most commonly mentioned by correctional officers concerned negative experiences with the prison administration. Twenty-nine percent of the officers who had experienced a career turning point fell into this category. Such conflicts between correctional officers and the prison administration are reflected in the following quotations from officers:

Every day is a turning point. If you're not stabbed in the back by an inmate, the administration will do it.

In this prison you've got to watch your back from both inmates and administration.

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...I had to fight the prison administration more than inmates.

In this institution the administration does not stand behind the correctional officer, therefore adding to the stress and high turnover rate.

...My job as a CO could be a pretty good one if the administration would stop trying to 'screw over' correctional officers as far as safety, pay, and simply try to be positive towards us for a change.

...This administration shows absolutely no regard for staff. 'If you don't like it here go somewhere else, we have 500 applicants wanting your job.'

There appears to be a real perception among these correctional officers that the prison administration does not support them nor appreciate their efforts. Other researchers, including Jacobs (1978), Webb and Morris (1978), Kinsell and Sheldon (1981), and Poole and Regoli (1981)uncovered similar findings. Whether this lack of administrative support is real or not, the perception of reality is present among the correctional officers. It might therefore be necessary for prison administrators to attempt in some way to show support for the correctional officer staff.

Length of service as a correctional officer was also found to be related to alienation. This finding can be compared with research by Toch and Klofas (1982) who found that the relationship between alienation and length of service resembled a "U" shaped curve, with alienation the highest among correctional officers with 5 - 19 years of experience, and with Cullen et al. (1985) who determined that increased seniority was positively related to increased stress. This finding is particularly interesting when one takes into account the previous discussion concerning age and alienation. While in this study there is a moderate positive relationship between age and seniority (rffi.41), the negative relationship between age and alienation and the positive relationship between seniority and alienation clearly shows the independence of age and seniority in the explanation of alienation in the prison environment.

Those correctional officers who have spent most of their careers working in maximum security areas appear to have lowered levels of alienation when compared to their compatriots working in lower security levels. This is an interesting observation since it runs counter to findings

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by Cullen et al. (1985) that working in a maximum security institution increases officer stress, and by Hepburn and Albonetti (1980) revealing no linkage between security level and job satisfaction. Why this should be so is unclear. It may perhaps be related to the fact that one of the three components of alienation in Dean's model is powerlessness. Increased powerlessness increases the probability of increased alienation. Correctional officers who have worked in maximum security areas may in fact have possessed more real power than those officers who have been employed in lower security areas. This might then contribute to their lower levels of alienation. Additionally, a second component of this model of alienation is normlessness. Working in minimum security areas, where the dual roles of custody and rehabilitation may be most pronounced for the correctional officer, might lead to increased normlessness. Support for this hypothesis

is provided by Hepburn and Albonetti (1980), who found that working in minimum security leads to high levels of role conflict.

The final variable found to be related to alienation was an officer's custody orientation. Those correctional officers who believe that the proper role of corrections is to control inmates and maintain security become more alienated in the prison environment than do those officers who are less interested in the security aspects of correctional work. Having a custody orientation in a correctional system which proposes to be in the rehabilitation business can cause problems for the correctional officer. Role conflict, which has been discussed by other researchers (Poole and Regoli, 1980a, 1980b, 1983; Hepburn and Albonetti, 1980; Whitehead and Lindquist, 1986) is one such problem that might be hypothesized to be a contributor to alienation. Furthermore, an officer who believes that his proper role is the control of inmates might well become disappointed and embittered when confronted by the reality that may times he lacks the power and authority to do so. The words of one custody oriented, alienated officer reflect this:

On my third day on the job I was called an asshole 20 times, a cocksucker 10 times, a motherfucker 13 times, and was told my mother fucked niggers 3 times. To sum up my attitude there are about 60 inmates I immediately would kill given a legal opportunity, about 40 inmates I would go out of my way to help, and the rest I plain don't care about at all.

One last point of interest in this analysis concerns the relationship between institutional and non-institutional variables to alienation. Of the

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five variables that were included in the regression model, four were classified as institutional in nature. The fifth variable, age, was defined as a non-institutional variable. Yet it displays a relationship to alienation which runs opposite to what one might expect among the general population (Dean, 1961) and police officers (Mottaz, 1983). While these five variables together account for only 28 % of the total variance in alienation scores, this does provide some evidence to support the theory that prisons are environments which produce alienation, rather than being environments that attract alienated individuals into their workforce.

CONCLUSIONS

The relationship between alienation and the role of correctional officer appears to be complex. Several variables have been identified that are directly related to high levels of alienation. These variables reflect a complex social environment which makes the work of correctional officers difficult, stressful, and alienating.

Correctional administrators may be able to deal with some of the problems revealed in this research. Recruitment practices that allow for the hiring of older and less custody oriented correctional officer recruits should be encouraged. Recruitment practices that allow for the hiring of older and less custody oriented correctional officer recruits should be encouraged. Training which stresses the reality of corrections and the correctional officer role would better prepare trainees for the subcultural world they will inhabit. Allowing correctional officers to have input into the administration of the prison may alleviate some of the animosity felt by many officers toward management. Such a program of participatory management has long been endorsed by the National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals (1973). Additional suggestions, such as making changes in training methods (Duffee, 1974) and expanding the correctional officer role (Toch and Klofas, 1982) have been made which might lessen the distance between guards and prison administrators. Increasing the educational level of correctional officers, however, would appear to have little effect upon alienation (see Table 1), as it was previously shown to have no positive effect in lessening job dissatisfaction (Cullen et al., 1985; Hepburn and Jurik, 1986).

While perhaps the most invisible of functionaries in the criminal justice system, correctional officers may arguably be among the most important. Understanding their problems and working toward their solution is an important task. While the concrete and steel of prisons may seem

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formidable, it is the correctional officer who keeps society safe from those who threaten it.

A survey published in Corrections Compendium (November, 1988) reveals that the annual correctional officer turnover rates for 47 responding state prison systems averaged 15 %, ranging from a low of 4 % to a high of 60 %.

Ninety-five percent of the respondents were male. Most were high school graduates or slightly above (mean = 12.9 years, SD = 2.6), while 73 % were married. The mean length of service as a CO was 56.3 months (SD = 54.0, Fifty-six percent of the respondents were CO I's, 26% CO II's, 13% Sergeants, 2% Correctional Technicians, 3 % Lieutenants, and 1% Captains.

Dean's Alienation Scale has a split-half reliability of .78 when corrected by the Spearman-Brown formula and yielded correlation coefficients which range in significance from .05 to .01 when correlated with the background variables of education, occupation, income, age, and community. It was modified to allow for eight responses (strongly disagree, disagree, moderately disagree, slightly disagree, slightly agree, moderately agree, agree, strongly agree) in this project.

Poole and Regoli's custody orientation scale yielded a Cronbach's Alpha of .55 in their 1980 study, while Hepburn's (1985) utilization of this scale produced a .63 Alpha. The modified form used in this research allowed for eight responses (strongly disagree, disagree, moderately disagree, slightly disagree, slightly agree, moderately agree, agree, strongly agree) and produced on Alpha of .51.

Forty-seven percent (n = 59) of all correctional officers surveyed reported having experienced a career turning point. Of these turning points, 83% (n = 49) were classified as negative and only 17% (n = 10) as positive. Turning points thought to be negative were categorized into "negative experiences with the prison administration" (29%), "Friends being injured" (17%), "too many inmate rights" (12%), "negative experiences with inmates" (12%), " "personally being injured" (7%), and "other negative" (6%). The few positive career turning points reported were categorized as "positive experiences with co-workers" (8%) and "positive experiences with inmates" (8%).

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(1988b). Correctional officers' perceptions of powerlessness. Journal of Crime and Justice 11: 47-59.

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