Can gardening programs reduce violence in prison?
Prisons are not known for their culinary delights, but the lack of nutritionally-balanced meals for prisoners may actually be contributing to the cycle of violence that our country's prison system has not been all that successful in breaking.
Oxford University is currently conducting a study to look at the relationship between nutritional intake and incidents of violence in 1,000 prisoners between the ages of 16 and 21 in three institutions in England and Scotland.
The researchers are expanding on a pilot study from 2002 that showed violence in young offenders fell 26 percent when given nutritional supplements—and serious offenses dropped off even more sharply, with a 37 percent reduction in acts like fighting, assaulting guards and taking hostages.
The National Institutes of Health has looked specifically at the effects of omega-3 supplements on behavioral patterns, and found that patients with violent records, when taking such supplements, showed one-third less anger and hostility.
While the specific mechanisms behind this relationship are not fully understood, the thought is that the brain loses "flexibility" when it is starved of essential nutrients—and that by hindering the proper function of brain cells, a person's attention span is shortened and capacity for self-control is diminished.
