PREVALENCE OF BURNOUT AMONG CORRECTIONAL OFFICERS AT XYZ PRISON

PREVALENCE OF BURNOUT AMONG CORRECTIONAL OFFICERS AT XYZ PRISON

INTRODUCTION

The research topic is to establish the Prevalence of burnout syndrome among prison officers in the XYZ command. Considering that prison officers are urgent to the life of detainment facilities, they have gotten almost no immediate consideration in scholarly circles or in more extensive open discussions everywhere throughout the world. This study looks at the Prevalence of burnout disorder and the relationship of employment contribution, work pressure, work fulfillment, and hierarchical responsibility with jail official’s burnout. By better understanding the impact of such factors on burnout with this extraordinary workplace, correctional administrators, and officials, the same might be better ready to constrain or alter a variety of adverse conduct outcomes. The study also addressed existing knowledge gaps and provided a basis for which further research can be carried out concerning this topic.  Policymakers and other stakeholders also have a basis for policy formulation on prison reforms and better working conditions in the world prisons (Griffin 2011, p.222).

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES

The specific objectives are as follows:

1. To determine the sociodemographic characteristics of prison officers at XYZ command.
2. To determine the prevalence of burnout syndrome among prison officers in the XYZ command.
3. To determine whether the factors stated in this study (Job involvement, organizational commitment, job stress, and Job satisfaction) are associated with the Prevalence of burnout syndrome among prison officers in XYZ command.

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RESEARCH QUESTIONS

The research questions are;

1. What are the sociodemographic characteristics of prison officers at the XYZ command?
2. What is the Prevalence of burnout syndrome among prison officers in the XYZ command?
3. Are Job involvement, organizational commitment, job stress, and Job satisfaction) are associated with the Prevalence of burnout syndrome among prison officers in XYZ command?

RESEARCH DESIGN

The study shall employ a cross-sectional descriptive study, describing the Prevalence of burnout and some factors associated with burnout among prison officers in XYZ Command.

I choose descriptive research because according to (Lambert 2012, p.256), it has the following advantages

• Competent to examine non-measured themes and issues
• The probability of watching the phenomenon in a healthy and unaltered indigenous habitat
• The chance to coordinate the subjective and quantitative strategies for data collection
• Less tedious than quantitative analyses.

However, a descriptive research design also has the following disadvantages, according to (Lambert 2012, p.256):

• Descriptive investigations can’t test or confirm the examination issue factually
• Research outcomes may mirror a certain degree of inclination because of the nonattendance of measurable tests
• The more substantial part of enlightening investigations are not ‘repeatable’ because of their observational nature
• Descriptive examinations are not useful in recognizing cause behind the depicted wonder

STUDY SETTING

The participants were from XYZ Command. It is located in the agricultural district of XYZ and sits on 1,200acre (4.9km2) estate. It consists of three units, which are XYZ maximum security prison, XYZ medium-security prison, and youth corrective training center (YCTC). Due to the diversity of prisons and consequently diverse populations of offenders within the prisons, it served as an appropriate study site for comparison purposes for levels of burnout in prison officers in the different prison settings within the XYZ Command. The staff population density also determined the appropriateness of this site. XYZ’s maximum-security prison shall be built in 1953 to accommodate 1800 inmates but now holds about 4100 inmates. It is the largest of the three sections of the command. It has about 800 prison officers working under an officer of the rank of assistant commissioner of prisons. This section houses inmates serving sentences from 7 years to life penalties as well as those on the death row. XYZ Medium security prison was built in 2009 to accommodate 700 inmates; it now holds about 2500 inmates serving a maximum of 7 years. It has about 256 prison officers. Youth Corrective Training Center was built in 2017; it is home to about 400 youth (< 18 years) petty offenders serving sentences up to 6 months. These youths undergo some training while serving their sentences. It is the only one of its kind in that region. It has about 59 prison officers. All this information is as far as the history of XYZ prison is concerned.

PARTICIPANTS

The study population consisted of prison officers working at XYZ that fulfilled the inclusion criteria.

INCLUSION CRITERIA

1. Those who had worked in a prison environment not less than six months before the study.
2. Those who gave consent.
3. Those that were not on annual leave.

EXCLUSION CRITERIA

1. Those who have worked in a prison environment for less than six months.
2. Those who decline to give consent.
3. Those on annual leave.

SAMPLE SIZE:

Fishers’ formula with known population size shall be used

Where n: desired sample size

N = population size (number of prison officers = 800+256+59=1115)

Z = Z statistic for 95% level of confidence

P = expected prevalence of occupational stress among Kenyan prison officers (assumed to be 0.5 since it is unknown)

d = precision of estimated prevalence (set at 5% therefore d = 0.05)

n= 1115*1.962*0.5*0.5/ 0.052(1115-1) + 1.962*0.52

n = 20prison officers

Using proportionate allocation for each prison that is maximum, medium and YCTC. The numbers for each prison are as follows

Maximum security prison= 800/1115 * 286= 205 prison officers.

Medium security prison= 256/1115 * 286= 66 prison officers.

YCTC prison= 59/1115 * 286 = 15 prison officers.

PROCEDURE

Random sampling shall be used to collect the sample size required.

STUDY INSTRUMENTS

The study will be carried out using the following instruments

Social demographic questionnaire (SDQ): designed by the researcher. This shall be used to collect details on personal data such as; age, gender, marital status, level of education, rank, duration of service, station within XYZ, religion, number of children, and other dependents. Other details collected on the sociodemographic questionnaire included; data related to workload, data related to work attitudes and relationships, social support, and additional information that shall be considered useful in enhancing work performance and satisfaction.

Maslach burnout inventory (MBI): This shall be designed to measure the aspects of burnout. Items were written in the form of statements about personal feelings or attitudes. The frequency scale shall be labeled at each point and ranged from 1 (‘a few times a year or less’) to 6 (‘everyday’). A value of zero shall be given if the respondent had never experienced the feeling or attitude described. The dependent variables were the three components of burnout, which were measured using this instrument, and they included; depersonalization, emotional exhaustion, and feeling of reduced personal accomplishment. Indicators from the MBI were used in other studies of correctional staff and are frequently used measures for correctional staff burnout.

Questionnaire on factors associated with burnout: This is a questionnaire that shall be administered in one of the studies on factors related to burnout among the corrections officers. Employment association, work pressure, work fulfillment, and authoritative responsibility were the autonomous factors of intrigue. Occupation contribution shall be estimated utilizing three-pointers. These pointers shall take advantage of the significance the activity has in an individual’s life. A worldwide proportion of employment fulfillment shall be used; the list shall be shaped by adding five markers adjusted from (Carlson 2016, p.24). The full of a feeling type of authoritative responsibility shall be estimated by adding six-pointers. Organizational commitment focused on the affective bond an employee had formed with the employing organization, such as loyalty, attachment, belief in the value system, and goal of the organization. All the indicators shall be answered by a 5point Liker-type response scale ranging from strongly disagree to agree strongly.

DATA COLLECTION PROCEDURE

The researcher shall present a letter requesting permission to carry out the study in XYZ Prison to the commissioners of prisons at the prison headquarters. Once approval is granted, the researcher shall present the document granting permission to carry out the study, to the assistant commissioner in charge of the central prison, and the officers in charge of the medium-security prison and youth healing and training center in XYZ. The researcher agreed with the administration on the best time to carry out the study. The time allocated to talk to the prison officers about the survey and distribute questionnaires shall be during the parade gatherings as the officers shall be coming in to work during each shift. Those who shall agree to participate shall be allotted a serial number as no names are intended to be used. They then signed a consent form, and the questionnaires were handed to those who meet the inclusion criteria. The participants shall fill in the polls during their free time and return them to a central place, where the researcher shall be collecting the completed questionnaires. Any questions arising from the officers shall be addressed as and when necessary, as the telephone number of the researcher shall be given to all the participants. The social – demographic questionnaire, Maslach burnout inventory as well as inquiries on factors associated with burnout shall be all covered. Once they completed the questionnaires, they shall be thanked.

ANALYSIS

DATA COLLECTION AND PROCESSING

Quality control during data collection shall be ensured at different stages. First, the researcher collected all the data.  Data collected shall be coded before data entry.  Data shall be entered into a computer database designed in MS Access. The database had inbuilt consistency and logic checks to minimize data entry errors. To further reduce errors related to typing data into the database, coded data shall be entered by picking the appropriate response from the drop-down menus in the database. After data cleaning and for quality control purposes, a 10% sample of all questionnaires shall be double entered and compared to the initial data entry. This quality control exercise preceded analysis, which commenced only after an acceptable agreement shall be obtained from quality control.

DATA ANALYSIS AND PRESENTATION

Data shall be transferred from MS Access to SPSS for analysis after data cleaning. The descriptive and inferential analysis shall be done using the statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) version 17. The descriptive study involved describing the sample through calculating averages for continuous variables like age of prison officers. Frequency distribution shall be done to determine the percent distribution of participants for critical demographic factors, including gender, work station, and education level. The result of descriptive analysis shall be presented in narratives, tables, and charts. The primary outcomes were calculated as the percentage of officers reporting high burn out. High injury out levels were determined by identifying officers whose responses to the 36 items on the Maslach Inventory were equivalent to the upper third on each of the three scales of the inventory. For the Emotional exhaustion subscale, the score must be ≥28; for the Depersonalization subscale, ratings must be ≥11; for the low Personal Accomplishment subscale, evaluations must be _≥33.  The association between high burn out and officers’ demographic characteristics were determined using the chi-square tests to compare percentages across the different demographic factors and levels of burnout. Statistical significance shall be determined by a cut-off value of 0.05.

The results were presented according to objectives in tables. Among the meals included in the results were: demographic characteristics of prison officers enrolled in the study; socio-economic characteristics of prison officers recruited in the study; overall Prevalence of job burnout among prison officers and domain-specific scores for job burnout, demographic factors and association with job burnout among prison officers; and socio-economic factors and associations with job burnout among prison officers.

ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS

Approval to carry out the study shall be obtained from my faculty department, and clearance obtained from the school as well. Permission to carry out research shall also be obtained from the prison’s commissioner, prison’s headquarters, and assistant commissioner of prisons at XYZ Command. Written informed consent shall be sought from participants after having explained the purpose of the study in detail. Participants shall be informed that cooperation in the research will be intentional, and data gathered during the investigation would be utilized only for the research. No material addition shall be reasonable from the examination. Secrecy shall be guaranteed; sequential numbers rather than names will be doled out to members to ensure anonymity. There shall be no invasive procedures.

LIMITATIONS

This study sheds some light on some of the challenges faced by the prison officers but may have limitations; low response rate. While this rate is acceptable for statistical analysis, the relatively small response has several implications that should be considered in interpreting the findings. Firstly, this flat response rate could potentially limit the external validity of the results if there were systematic differences between the responders and non-responders. While descriptive data were not collected from no responders, the observation that sample characteristics are similar to that of wardens in other studies is supportive of the assumption that the non-responders were comparable to responders. A second implication of the low response rate is related to sample size calculation. The anticipated precision (5%) in estimating the Prevalence of burnout among prison wardens shall not be achieved.  Post-hoc sample size recalculation showed that the attained sample size of 181 prison officers allowed precision of ±7% around the Prevalence of burnout. At the same time, it is not possible to assess factors outside work that contribute to stress and decreased work performance. Finally, the Prevalence of substance abuse and other health problems not evaluated.

RESEARCH BUDGET

References

Carlson, J.R., and Thomas, G., 2016. Burnout among prison caseworkers and corrections officers — Journal of Offender Rehabilitation, 43(3), pp.19-34.

Griffin, M.L., 2011. Job satisfaction among detention officers: Assessing the relative contribution of organizational climate variables — Journal of Criminal Justice, 29(3), pp.219-232.

Lambert, V.A., and Lambert, C.E., 2012. Qualitative descriptive research: An acceptable design. Pacific Rim International Journal of Nursing Research, 16(4), pp.255-256.