Criminal Justice Staff’s Professional Quality of Life and Interactions with Justice-Involved Individuals: The Moderating Role of Stigma

Abstract

ABSTRACT Criminal justice staff work in a challenging setting and yet are often expected to promote positive change in justice-involved individuals. This study examined the 1) types of supportive interactions criminal justice staff engage in with justice-involved individuals, 2) association between staff’s professional quality of life (i.e. burnout, secondary traumatic stress, compassion satisfaction) and their endorsement of supportive interactions, and 3) the moderating impact of stigmatizing attitudes. Criminal justice staff across the U.S. (n = 152) completed demographic questionnaires, the Professional Quality of Life-V, Attitudes Toward Prisoners scale, and endorsed types of supportive interactions they engaged in with justice-involved individuals in the past year. Bivariate correlations, Poisson regressions, and moderation analyses were conducted. Staff with traditional helping roles (e.g. psychologists), higher degrees obtained, and more compassion satisfaction (i.e. one’s gratification from their job) engaged in more types of supportive interactions. Staff with more stigma toward justice-involved individuals engaged in fewer types of supportive interactions. Staff’s stigma, as a moderator, strengthened the association between compassion satisfaction and the types of supportive interactions staff endorsed. Criminal justice agencies should continue training to improve working relationships between staff and clients, increase compassion satisfaction, and reduce stigma to potentially impact justice-involved individuals’ behavior during and after incarceration.