The Influence of Individual, Job, and Organizational Characteristics on Correctional Staff Job Stress, Job Satisfaction, and Organizational Commitment

As staff performance is vital to the survival of correctional institutions, much empirical attention has been paid to studying the causes and consequences of their attitudes and behaviors. The current study adds to this body of knowledge by examining the factors that explain three central occupational attitudes—job stress, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment. More specifically, using survey data collected from a large county correctional system in Orlando, Florida, this research assesses the impact of key demographic, job, and organizational characteristics within and across jail staff attitudes toward job stress, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment. This article finds that the more powerful predictors of each of these attitudes are job and organizational characteristics. Among the dependent variables, job stress has an inverse relationship with job satisfaction, and job satisfaction had a powerful positive association with organizational commitment.