Barriers to help-seeking among correction officers: examining the influence of institutional culture and structure

ABSTRACT

Correction officers experience a challenging work environment that increases the risk of encountering violence, physical danger, and traumatic events such as inmate violence and potential assaults by inmates. The demanding work climate can lead to stress and mental health concerns. However, officers are reluctant to seek help for their own mental health concerns and avoid employer provided services, including peer-to-peer support units. This study seeks to explore the underlying institutional barriers to help-seeking for mental health concerns among correction officers. Content analysis is applied to qualitative data from 42 semi-structured interviews with family members and friends of correction officers who died by suicide and 395 interviews with officers working for a state department of corrections answering open-ended questions. Two overarching themes emerged and within these themes were a series of subthemes revealing institutional barriers to help-seeking for mental health concerns. Institutional culture centers around stigma related to mental health and hypermasculinity perpetuated in the work environment. Institutional structure contains institutional organization, confidentiality, and punitive responses as subthemes. Correctional settings could benefit from reducing stigma of mental health related encouraged by hypermasculinity, restructuring organizational hierarchies, enforcing confidentiality, and creating supportive environments for officers to seek help for mental health concerns.

KEYWORDS:

• Correction officers
• help-seeking
• institutional barriers
• correctional settings
• institutional culture

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. For more extensive detail regarding the methodology of the overall project, please see [Frost et al. 2020].

2. Quotes derived from phase one interviews can be identified by interview numbers with two digits, a dash, and two digits (e.g. Interview 01–01). Quotes derived from phase two interviews can be identified by four-digit interview numbers (e.g. Interview 1234)

Additional information

Funding

The research reported in this article was supported by the National Institute of Justice under Grant #2016-MU-MU-0010. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not represent the official views of the National Institute of Justice or the U.S. Department of Justice.

Notes on contributors

Candence Wills

Candence Wills (she/her) is a doctoral candidate in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Northeastern University. Ms. Wills’ research focus is primarily on trafficking in persons and institutional responses to marginalized populations, including racial/ethnic minorities, gender, sexual minorities in domestic and international context. She contributed to the United Nations Office of Drug and Crime 2020 Global Trafficking in Persons (GLOTIP) report during her research fellowship at the UNODC in Vienna, Austria. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4979-6807

Kayla Bates

Kayla Bates is a doctoral student in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Northeastern University. Kayla’s research interests focus on the impact of trauma among various populations within correctional environments, specifically the impact of adverse childhood experiences.

Natasha A. Frost

Natasha A. Frost is professor in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts. Dr. Frost’s research focuses on the causes and consequences of mass incarceration. She is co-author, with Todd Clear, of The Punishment Imperative: The Rise and Failure of Mass Incarceration (NYU Press, 2013). For the past five years, Dr. Frost has been working collaboratively with the Massachusetts Department of Correction on research related to officer health and wellbeing, with a specific focus on psychological distress and suicide among correction officers. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3110-2467

Carlos. E. Monteiro

Carlos. E. Monteiro is an assistant professor in the Sociology Department at Suffolk University. Dr. Monteiro’s research focuses largely on corrections and punishment with a specific focus on recidivism and reentry. Some of his most recent work examines correctional environments including the demands of correctional contexts on staff. In 2015, Dr. Monteiro earned his Ph.D. in criminology and justice policy from Northeastern University. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4674-3972