The connection between work attitudes and Chinese correctional staff burnout

• Published in: Journal of criminology (2021) Vol. 55; no. 4; pp. 568 - 585
• Main Authors: Liu, Jianhong, Lambert, Eric G, Jiang, Shanhe, Zhang, Jinwu
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London, England SAGE Publications 01.12.2022
• Subjects: Burn out (Psychology); Correctional personnel; Evaluation; Job satisfaction; Job stress; Organizational commitment; Prisons; Work environment; CHINA; Correctional staff; job involvement; job burnout; organizational commitment; China; job satisfaction
• ISSN: 2633-8076; 2633-8084
• DOI: 10.1177/26338076221127710

Officers are a valuable resource for prisons across the globe. Working in corrections is a demanding job with a higher-than-average risk of job burnout. Most prison burnout studies have focused on staff working in Western prisons, particularly those in the U.S. These studies have generally found an association between work attitudes and burnout among prison officers. However, a key question is whether the associations are universal or contextual, varying by nation. The current study examined the link between the major work attitudes of job involvement, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment and the burnout dimensions of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and feeling ineffective at work among staff at two Chinese prisons. According to the results of ordinary least squares multivariate regression tests, job involvement, and job satisfaction had significant negative effects on emotional exhaustion, but commitment did not. Only job involvement had significant negative effects on depersonalization. Job involvement and organizational commitment had significant negative effects on feeling ineffective, while job satisfaction had nonsignificant effects. The results indicate that the major work attitudes are negatively linked to job burnout for the studied Chinese prison staff; efforts should be undertaken to build these work attitudes to reduce burnout since burnout is linked to negative consequences for officers, inmates, and the prison. Based on previous research and current findings, some of the effects of work attitudes appear to be universal, and others appear to be contextual.