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Stress among Correctional Officers: an Organizational Justice Approach

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Abstract

Employees’ positive perceptions of organizational justice are crucial to the successful operation of correctional institutions. Employees who perceive their employer treats them justly and fairly report less job-related stress and happier home lives. Organizational justice has two primary components – procedural and distributive justice – that have been examined relative to job satisfaction and job performance. The current study builds on the existing literature and examines the effects that perceptions of procedural and distributive justice have on the strain-based form of work-family conflict. Specifically, the goal of this study is to determine whether these two forms of justice were related to the strain that correctional employees bring home with them. Data collected from a large Southern correctional institution indicate that perceptions of procedural justice related significantly to reported levels of the strain-based form of work-family conflict and that staff with the highest perceptions of procedural justice reported the lowest levels of strain-based work-family conflict. This did not hold true for distributive justice, however, which was found to be statistically unrelated to work-family strain.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, Mississippi State University, 207 Bowen Hall, P.O. Box C, Mississippi State, MS, 39762, USA

    David C. May & Stacy H. Haynes

  2. Department of Criminal Justice, The University of Nevada, AB601D, Mail Stop 0214, 1664 North Virginia Street, Reno, NV, 89557, USA

    Eric G. Lambert & Matthew C. Leone

  3. Department of Legal Studies, The University of Mississippi, M306 Mayes Hall, P.O. Box 1848, University, MS, 38677, USA

    Linda D. Keena

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  1. David C. May
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  2. Eric G. Lambert
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  3. Matthew C. Leone
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  4. Linda D. Keena
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  5. Stacy H. Haynes
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Correspondence to David C. May.

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The authors thank the editor and anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions, which improved the paper. The authors also thank Janet Lambert for editing and proofreading the paper.

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May, D.C., Lambert, E.G., Leone, M.C. et al. Stress among Correctional Officers: an Organizational Justice Approach. Am J Crim Just 45, 454–473 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12103-020-09520-w

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