It is a fact that most prison inmates will be released at some point. It therefore would greatly benefit society if those inmates had the opportunity to learn work, coping and life management skills and be physically and mentally healthy upon their release.

While I am in favor of personal responsibility, I also realize from my first-hand experience in corrections that a macho “tough on crime” approach that is purely punitive and does not include such elements is not usually successful in changing bad behavior or in making people more productive citizens. Society, generally speaking, does not appreciate the potential benefit for the greater good that could be realized by investing in treatment programs and clinical research in prisons.

Fortunately there are some researchers who are devoting their careers to solving clinical puzzles in correctional settings. One such person is Bernard Gesch. He initially trained as a physicist but later became a social worker. Now he is a nutrition and criminology researcher at the University of Oxford.

Science published an article about him on September 23, 2009, entitled, “The Theory? Diet Causes Violence. The Lab? Prison.” Earlier in 2009 he began a $2.3 million double-blind nutritional supplement trial involving over 1000 inmates at three different U.K. prisons. He is attempting to reproduce on a larger scale the results of his 2002 study of over 200 inmates that showed that those who took nutritional supplements committed 35% fewer violent offenses than those who took a placebo. He does not believe that simply improving diet will eliminate violent behavior, but he is hoping to show that it is a major factor.

I am thankful to see that there are researchers such as Gesch who are willing to risk ridicule to study issues such as these, especially in prisons. It’s unfortunate that politics often gets in the way of it happening. If Gesch is successful in proving his theory, then the implications for our society, even beyond the prison walls, would be huge.

Photo Credit: tiffanywashko via Flickr