A staff is essential for running a safe, secure, and humane correctional facility. Not only does staff affect correctional facility operations, the work environment also affects the staff. Because staff members are both a valuable and expensive resource, recent literature explores the relationship between different aspects of the work environment and various staff outcomes, such as job stress, job satisfaction, job burnout, absenteeism, turnover, and attitudes toward treatment/punishment. While this research provides valuable information, other areas still require scrutiny. One overlooked area is life satisfaction. Life satisfaction is the cognitive appraisal of the global degree of satisfaction a person has with his or her overall life (Donovan and Halpern, 2002, Erdogan et al., 2012 and Yilmaz, 2008).
Life satisfaction is likely to be an important outcome for employees, including correctional staff. Life satisfaction is associated with physical and mental health, as well as decreased mortality (Chida and Steptoe, 2008 and Donovan and Halpern, 2002). Erdogan et al. (2012) contend that people who are satisfied with their lives tend to treat others better and, in turn, are treated better by other people. Life satisfaction not only impacts the employee, but also his or her family, friends, employer, and society. Donovan and Halpern (2002, p. 32) argue that “when people are happier, they tend to be more open-minded and creative in their thinking. In contrast, people who are unhappy, stressed or dissatisfied tend to exhibit ‘tunnel vision’ and rigid thinking.” In research outside the field of criminal justice, life satisfaction has been positively linked with creativity, open-mindness, retention and productivity (Duckworth, Quinn, & Seligman, 2009Erdogan et al., 2012 and Lyubomirsky et al., 2005). In fact, Jones (2006) reports that life satisfaction is a stronger predictor of job performance than job satisfaction. Additionally, life satisfaction has been reported to be negatively related with absenteeism and a desire to retire early (Murphy et al., 2006 and Von Bonsdorff et al., 2010). Also, life satisfaction has been associated with increased organizational citizenship behaviors, which are going beyond what is expected at work, among both non-criminal justice employees (Greguras and Diefendorff, 2010) and criminal justice employees (Lambert, 2010). In corrections, life satisfaction has been linked with lower turnover intent and higher organizational citizenship (Lambert, 2010 and Lambert et al., 2005). In addition, there has been a movement in the past several decades to make workplaces more human-oriented, which includes being concerned about workers’ life satisfaction (Erdogan et al., 2012).
Life satisfaction is important for both the individual and the employing organization, including correctional facilities. Staff members who are unhappy with life may become demoralized and less productive and effective on the job. On the other hand, correctional agencies with staff that tend to be satisfied with their lives are more likely to maintain a safe and secure institution. As much of one's adult life is spent at work, workplace factors likely influence one's life satisfaction (Erdogan et al., 2012). The relationship of the work environment with the life satisfaction of correctional staff, however, has received little attention in the literature, and should be explored for both theoretical and practical reasons. Organizational commitment, a bond between the employee and his/her employing organization, is a workplace factor that is likely to be related to life satisfaction. Organizational commitment is a multi-dimensional construct with different forms that fall on a continuum ranging from behavioral to attitudinal (Mowday, Porter, & Steers, 1982). At the behavioral end is continuance commitment characterized by job investments that bond the person to the organization, such as salary or pension (Meyer and Allen, 1997). At the continuum's attitudinal end is affective commitment, a psychological bond characterized by loyalty to and identification with the purposes and goals of the employing organization (Allen and Meyer, 1990). This study examines how these two forms of organizational commitment are related to the life satisfaction of correctional staff at two correctional facilities, one private and one public.
