Crime and Nourishment

In prison, suicides, self-harm, and assaults on officers are on the rise. But studies suggest there is a cheap, low-risk way to improve inmate behavior and mental health, making the facilities safer for both staffand prisoners

- By Kimberley Wilson. Photographs by Alamy

Scientific progress is characterised by the transition from the supernatural to the natural, and the mystical to the comparatively mundane. Before the modern era of psychology and neuroscience, mental illness was understood to be evidence of the supernatural: demonic possession, unhappy deities or vengeful curses. Unusual behaviour would be addressed through prayer, penance and exorcism. Towards the end of the Renaissance, when the church’s power over civil life began to wane, there was greater acceptance of more mundane causes of emotional distress or unusual behaviour. Though the treatment of mentally ill individuals in 16th-Century asylums could not be called humane, the assumption, at least, was that the causes of illness were natural or physical and they were treated with purges or emetics.

Today, one of the most mundane – but profound – influences on mental health and behaviour emerging in the scientific literature is food and nutrition. While I am not suggesting that nutrition answers all of our questions around the mind and mental health, it is a key and undervalued part of the overall picture and its effects have been repeatedly demonstrated in one environment in particular: prison.

A series of studies have found that improving prisoners’ nutrition reduces incidents of violence by, on average, 30 per cent. This is a fascinating and remarkable series of results that should make us think very carefully about the food that we choose for ourselves, feed to our children or provide in our institutions.

THE KIDS AREN’T ALRIGHT