Can Nutrition Reduce Violence In Prisons?

Encouraging healthier eating could be the government's secret weapon in the fight against crime, according to experts. A study by researchers at the University of Oxford published in 2002 has found that adding vitamins and other vital nutrients to young people's diets can cut crime. They found that improving the diets of young offenders at a maximum security institution in Buckinghamshire cut offences by 25%. The study - one of the first to show a scientific link between healthy eating and crime - has now been extended to see if the findings can be applied to the population in general.

Bernard Gesch and colleagues at the University of Oxford enrolled 230 young offenders from HM Young Offenders Institution Aylesbury in their study. Half of the young men received pills containing vitamins, minerals and essential fatty acids. The other half received placebo or dummy pills.


The researchers recorded the number and type of offenses each of the prisoners committed in the nine months before they received the pills and in the nine months during the trial. They found that the group which received the supplements committed 25% fewer offenses than those who had been given the placebo. The greatest reduction was for serious offenses, including violence which fell by 40%. There was no such reduction for those on the dummy pills.


Writing in the British Journal of Psychiatry, they said improving diets could be a cost-effective way of reducing crime in the community and also reducing the prison population. Mr Gesch said: "The supplements just provided the vitamins, minerals and fatty acids found in a good diet which the inmates should get anyway. Yet the improvement was huge."


He added: "This approach needs to be re-tested but looks to be cheap, highly effective and humane." He said that given that nutrients were the building blocks of the brain and its associated structures, it was highly likely that a good diet would have a direct impact on behavior.


To read about the follow up study conducted by Oxford University in 2008 click on this link: http://www.ox.ac.uk/media/news_stories/2008/080129.html

To read the results of a similar study done in the Netherlands click on this link:
http://www.ortho.nl/persberichten/63/dutch-prisoners-also-less-aggressive-after-supplement

 

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