Each year, more than 365,000 employees are charged with upholding incarcerated people’s protection while they are in custody. Corrections staff and their working conditions have historically been overlooked in research, but they are essential to better understand how to improve corrections’ employees’ overall well-being, reduce occupational risks, and increase recruitment and retention, especially during a staffing, recruitment, and retention crisis. Partnering with five state prisons and five local research institutions, the Urban Institute’s Prison Research and Innovation Initiative aimed to better understand and improve prison living and working conditions. This brief summarizes findings from three waves of climate surveys administered by local research partners to thousands of corrections staff in those five states.

Why This Matters

Working in corrections is not your typical job. Long day and night shifts can be grueling, interpersonal interactions can be hostile, and corrections facilities are often overcrowded, noisy, and hot environments—all of which compound with a national staffing crisis with unprecedented vacancies and significant recruitment and retention issues. This research offers firsthand insights into corrections staff’s perceptions of their own working conditions, drawing on surveys jointly designed and analyzed by incarcerated people, corrections staff, and each state’s local research partners. Understanding how corrections staff perceive their working conditions is essential for policymakers, corrections leaders, advocates, and researchers working toward reforms that address challenges in prison living and working conditions that the surveys uncover.

Key Takeaways

This research highlights significant issues in prison working conditions, according to corrections staff, particularly regarding job satisfaction and skill development, personal safety and well-being, and COVID-19 responses. Key findings include the following:

• Job satisfaction: Corrections staff showed mixed levels of job satisfaction overall. For example, a large majority shared that they take pride in their job and that they positively influence incarcerated people through their work, but only about half said they look forward to coming to work.
• Personal safety and well-being: Staff were split on whether their workplaces ensure their safety. For example, less than half of staff felt their prison’s policies and practices support staff well-being, and less than half felt their prison’s leadership does everything possible to keep staff safe.
• COVID-19 responses: Corrections staff rated COVID-19 responses positively overall, with a strong majority indicating that staff had access to sanitary items, were supplied with cleaning supplies and masks, and were wearing masks. But only half of staff felt their prison’s leadership demonstrated care for the well-being of staff during COVID-19.

How We Did It

Local research partners surveyed corrections staff across five state prisons between 2021 and 2024. In total, they administered 14 climate surveys over three waves, yielding 1,750 responses from corrections staff. Surveys included “cross-site” questions, asked in all facilities, across seven domains, such as prison working conditions, interactions between staff and incarcerated people, corrections practices and sanctions, views of workplace culture, and job satisfaction. Responses were anonymous and not linked across waves. Urban conducted analysis of these surveys to produce cross-site findings.