A Qualitative Study Of Prison Polices’ Job Burnout

Occupational burnout of prison police(hereinafter called OBPP),affects not only individual health(both physical and mental)and family happiness of police officers,but also the safety and stability of the society,and even the credibility of the Government.With contradictions and conflicts emerging during China’s deepening social and economic reform in recent years,both our whole society and the Government have the responsibility to face and solve these questions:prevention of and solution to OBPP,quality improvement of prison management transformation,and appreciation of the meaning and value of prison police’s work by all citizens at the same time.A stable prison police force enhances the long-term stability of the society and the authority of the Government.Based on summary and analysis of OBPP home and abroad,the author,by collecting firsthand information of OBPP from both in-depth interview on the basis of pre-talk and field observations with 12 Shanghai prison police,using the method of qualitative research and applying ground theory analysis method to compare and analyze the data,finds out the true situation and degree,analyzes the factors in the occurrence,and summarizes the hazards of OBPP of in the following three aspects:emotional exhaustion,dehumanization,and low sense of achievement shown by prison police.This study finds that the status quo of OBPP in Shanghai is of different grades:obvious emotional exhaustion,considerably acceptable status of dehumanization,downtrend sense of individual achievement and value.The main factors in Shanghai OBPP are:strong psychological gap between continuously rising cost of living in Shanghai and changeless low salary and wellfares;individual related hopelessness of career caused by obstructed channel and limited opportunities of promotion;professional particularity related exhaustion of individual talent and intelligence,and decline of social competitiveness and resilience;high demand workload,risk from work but closed and invariable work mode;variety of complex relationships pressures,etc..Suggestions were given in this study aiming at the problems above from four aspects including the policy,organizations and individuals as well as Shanghai Municipality:balancing civil service pay system and building up differentiated bonus system;establishing effective supervision,restraint and incentive human resource mechanism;setting up sound methods for personnel selection and psychological evaluation;educating prison police on legality and risk to eliminate latent danger of their profession;increasing positive publicity to let citizens understand more about prison police;developing personal interests and hobbies to face pressures of work positively;increasing self-learning and actively change present situation;and finally giving subsidies and aid to prison police in need by Shanghai Prison System based on the status quo.From the research results,the overall situation of Shanghai OBPP has both particularity and universality.Research for the Shanghai OBPP is propitious for completing information on national OBPP situation research.The research also helps Shanghai Municipality to understand and provides theoretical guidance to the occupational burnout status of prison police.Moreover,reference and consultation for OBPP in other parts of the country and cities of same type as Shanghai can be found in this study.