Good pay but poor working conditions among prison officers

A survey of prison officers’ experiences of working in the Irish Prison Service reveals a grim picture in relation to working conditions. More than 80% of respondents are unhappy with their physical safety, while 85% express dissatisfaction with training and development. Some 87% of those surveyed reported that morale in the workplace had suffered as a result of poor working conditions, despite prison officers’ relatively high pay rates compared with other public servants.

The project ‘Working in the Irish prison services – A survey of employee opinion’ was commissioned by the Prison Officers’ Association (POA) and undertaken by Professor Patrick Gunnigle and Christine Cross from the Kemmy Business School at the University of Limerick.

Changes in prison service

The authors of the survey note that significant changes have been introduced in the prison service since 2003. For instance, the service has become a separate executive office of the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, with the establishment of new independent organisational and management structures. Further changes, both now and planned in the future, include the decentralisation of the service along with the relocation and closure of some prisons.

POA members have also experienced a series of changes in relation to their working life, chiefly due to the introduction of the revised ‘Proposal for organisational change’ in 2005. The most significant features of this proposal include new annualised working hours – an arrangement which has led to significant reductions in overtime – new control mechanisms in relation to absenteeism, moves towards a range of productivity-related changes, and new promotion measures.

Survey findings

Workplace safety

The survey of prison officers reveals that more than eight out of 10 respondents claim that they are unhappy with their physical safety at work. The majority of respondents, at 85.9%, believe that the service does not give them sufficient support to ensure their safety at work. Some two-thirds of prison workers indicated that they are dissatisfied with their physical working conditions.

A large number of workers, at 65.5%, reported feeling unsafe when interacting with service users as part of their job. Conversely, only 2% of respondents indicated that they feel safe doing their job when interacting with service users. Almost half of the employees, at 42.8%, claim that they have encountered physically challenging behaviour on a daily or weekly basis in the last year. Over half of all respondents, at 55.9%, encountered psychological or emotionally challenging behaviour on a daily and weekly basis.

Career development

The majority of the respondents, at 85%, are unhappy with the training and development opportunities offered by their employer. A mere 2.9% of respondents are very satisfied with their career prospects in the service. Meanwhile, almost two-thirds of respondents, at 60%, are unhappy with their work-life balance arrangements.

Pay

In relation to pay, over half of the respondents, at 54.3%, are happy with their pay level, while the remaining 45.7% are dissatisfied. Prison officers are among the highest paid public servants. The latest figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) show that prison officers received average weekly earnings of €1,149 in 2006, compared with an average rate of €838 for all civil servants. When benefits such as holiday entitlements are considered, the prison service employees express greater satisfaction, with about two-thirds (65.7%) indicating that they are satisfied with the benefits provided.

Workplace change

In relation to workplace change, 80% of the respondents believe that their workload has increased in the last three years, with just under half reporting that it has increased greatly. Almost two-thirds of respondents state that their safety has diminished in the last three years.

Main conclusions

Overall, some 87% of those surveyed claimed that morale in the workplace had suffered as a result of poor working conditions. The authors of the survey conclude that:

of greatest concern is that employees do not feel safe at work, nor do they do feel safe when interacting with service users. Additionally, they do not believe the service provides them with sufficient support to ensure their safety at work. Alarmingly, when the findings are examined more closely, we can see that over half of all respondents believe that their safety has greatly decreased over the last three years.

The study also observes that: ‘the introduction of annualised hours may not be working to the benefit of these prison officers’, given some of the negative findings on workload and the widespread perception that the length of the working day or week had increased, as well as their dissatisfaction with work–life balance arrangements. Another issue relates to career development: ‘the significant majority of employees expressed their dissatisfaction with the training and development opportunities in the service.’

Brian Sheehan, IRN Publishing