What It Takes to Last in Corrections: Burnout, Belonging, and the Case for Mindfulness
- CMPS Faculty
- Apr 3
- 6 min read
A new study from Michigan State University just dropped a title that will resonate with anyone who has spent time inside a correctional facility — not as a research subject, but as the person responsible for keeping it running.
"You Are Replaceable."
That phrase comes directly from corrections officers describing how their supervisors and institutions treat them. It's the title of a peer-reviewed study published in February 2026 in the journal Corrections: Policy, Practice and Research, and it captures something that those of us working in the public safety wellness space have been hearing for years: the people holding the line inside America's prisons feel profoundly unseen, unsupported, and expendable.
The researchers analyzed over 600 anonymous employee reviews posted by current and former corrections officers across eight state departments of corrections. What emerged was not a picture of a workforce that is simply burned out. It was a portrait of people who came to the job prepared to give — and encountered institutions that took without giving back.
What Officers Said, In Their Own Words
The study found recurring themes across every state in the sample: mandatory overtime running to sixteen-hour shifts, work schedules that demolished family life, and a deep sense that leadership neither noticed nor cared about the toll. Officers described feeling like interchangeable bodies in a slot — necessary to fill a post, but not valued as human beings.
The hardest passages to read were about leadership. Across all eight states, officers described supervisors who were disengaged, who tolerated favoritism and cronyism, and who appeared more focused on institutional compliance than on the people doing the work. One recurrent theme: officers felt that the difficulty of managing complex populations — including individuals with serious mental illness, gang involvement, and fentanyl-related crises — was simply added to their load without any corresponding increase in training, support, or recognition.
Pay and benefits were frequently mentioned as positives. But they were described as a trade-off — financial stability purchased at the cost of emotional and physical health. Several officers in the study described putting money aside for therapy, for medical care, and for family support — as if survival costs were simply part of the job's compensation math.
The Real Staffing Crisis
Correctional agencies are hemorrhaging staff. Vacancy rates in the eight systems studied ranged from roughly twelve percent to forty-five percent. Administrators have responded with hiring bonuses, pay increases, and recruitment campaigns — and the revolving door keeps spinning.
The study makes a straightforward argument about why: money alone doesn't fix a broken exchange. Officers aren't leaving primarily because of pay. They're leaving because the institution doesn't hold up its end of the deal. They give risk, time, emotional labor, and physical presence — and receive indifference, unpredictability, and the message that they are replaceable.
This is what social exchange theory tells us: when people perceive that what they contribute isn't matched by what they receive — in support, in recognition, in fair treatment — they disengage, burn out, and leave. And the ones who stay sometimes do so at great personal cost.
The national average life expectancy for corrections officers is cited in the study as fifty-seven years old. One officer in the study mentioned it matter-of-factly, as if naming a known hazard of the trade. It should stop us cold.
Where Mindfulness Fits — And Where It Doesn't
At the Center for Mindfulness in Public Safety, we want to be honest about something: mindfulness training is not a cure for institutional dysfunction. It cannot fix mandatory overtime, low staffing ratios, or leadership cultures rooted in indifference. If an agency implements a mindfulness program as a substitute for structural reform, it is doing its officers a disservice — and the officers will know it.
What mindfulness can do — and what the research consistently supports — is build the internal resources that help people navigate genuinely difficult working conditions with more stability, awareness, and resilience. It can reduce the physiological damage of chronic stress. It can interrupt the automatic reactivity that leads to poor decisions under pressure — decisions that harm officers, incarcerated individuals, and communities. It can create the conditions for officers to stay in their own lives even while doing extraordinarily hard work.
The Michigan State study itself points toward this when it recommends that agencies invest in leadership development centered on emotional intelligence — the capacity to be present, responsive, and fair. That is not a clinical term. That is a contemplative one.
The study highlights Michigan's Department of Corrections as a promising outlier: their leadership academy integrates communication skills with emotional intelligence training. That is exactly the kind of institutional intervention that mindfulness-based approaches can strengthen and deepen.
Mindful Work Readiness Is Not Soft Skills Training
We sometimes encounter resistance to wellness and mindfulness programs in correctional settings because they can seem like "soft skills" — nice to have, but secondary to the hard realities of the job.
We'd argue the opposite. The capacity to regulate your own nervous system in a volatile environment is a core professional skill. The ability to respond to a mental health crisis in a housing unit without escalating it is a professional skill. The capacity to maintain your ethical center when the culture around you is cynical and exhausted — that is an advanced professional skill. These things can be taught, practiced, and developed. They are what we mean by mindful work readiness.
Officers who have access to these tools don't just perform better on the job. They are more likely to go home intact. They are more likely to be present for their families. They are more likely to stay in the profession long enough to develop the judgment and wisdom that incarcerated people — and their colleagues — genuinely need.
What Institutions Can Do
The Michigan State study offers several practical directions for agencies serious about changing the dynamic:
Rethink what "staffing" means. Headcount targets that don't account for actual workload, facility design, and population complexity produce staffing plans that look good on paper and fail in practice. Real workforce planning must account for human sustainability.
Invest in training that prepares officers for the actual job. Officers consistently reported being thrown into high-risk environments with minimal preparation. Trauma-informed training, de-escalation skills, and mindfulness-based stress management are not luxuries — they are preparation for the work officers are actually doing.
Build leadership cultures grounded in procedural fairness. Officers aren't asking for special treatment. They're asking for consistency, transparency, and the sense that the rules apply equally. Leadership that models emotional intelligence and treats staff with dignity builds institutional trust — and institutional trust is what keeps people in the profession.
Pair financial incentives with cultural change. Pay matters. Benefits matter. But retention bonuses handed to officers working in a toxic culture don't buy loyalty. They buy time. Real retention comes from officers who feel that the institution values them as people.
An Invitation
If you are a corrections officer, a supervisor, a department administrator, or a policymaker reading this — we see the complexity of what you're navigating. The correctional environment is one of the most demanding in public safety, and the people inside it are often carrying more than anyone outside fully understands.
The Center for Mindfulness in Public Safety exists because we believe that the people who do this work deserve support that goes beyond a paycheck — support that is grounded in evidence, practical enough to use on a twelve-hour shift, and honest about the real nature of the work.
We host a free weekly session — the Mindful Public Safety Hour — every Wednesday at 8 PM ET, open to anyone in public safety who wants a space to connect, practice, and breathe. You don't need to be experienced with mindfulness. You just need to show up.
The Center for Mindfulness in Public Safety is dedicated to bringing evidence-based mindfulness training to law enforcement, corrections, and other public safety professionals. Our programs support officer wellness, ethical decision-making, and sustainable careers in public safety.
Source: Aranda-Hughes, V., Wilson, J., Rivera, N., & Richmond, I. (2026). "You are Replaceable": A Social Exchange Analysis of Correctional Officer Burnout and Attrition. Corrections: Policy, Practice and Research. DOI: 10.1080/23774657.2026.2630339
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