Bad Diet Cause Criminal Behaviour example essay topic

Can better nutrition decrease criminal activity? Claire: politicians like to claim that they " re tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime but what are the causes of crime. But what are the causes of crime? Broken homes, poor education and poverty are often implicated, yet many people survive all of these with out so much as a parking ticket.

Stephen: a group of British researchers now claim that a huge amount of antisocial behaviour, for example swearing, is simply down to poor nutrition. Their research suggests that a daily dose of vitamins, minerals and fatty acids could stem the tidal wave of crime that threatens to swamp the prison system, and perhaps society at large. It is an astounding claim that has been met with widespread scepticism. If the researchers are right, they " ve succeeded where generations of politicians have failed. The research was funded and organised by natural justice, a charity the researches the causes of criminal behaviour. Its director is Bernard Gecsh, a senior researcher in the physiology department of Oxford University.

"People assume that antisocial behaviour is entirely a problem of personality he explains "but there is a whole substratum of physiological factors that can be measured scientifically" he believes many prisoners are suffering from "subclinical malnutrition" not bad enough to bring about physical symptoms such as scurvy, but bad enough to cause a range of anti-social behaviours. Natural justice's programme began in 1988 when gecsh persuaded magistrates in Cumbria to let him try nutrition supplements on a juvenile offender who had resisted all other attempts of rehabilitation. He says the result was a sudden improvement in the subject's behaviour. In a second case study, natural justice claims to have halted one girl's criminal career just by increasing her intake of micro-nutrients to the governments recommended daily allowance. The latest natural justice study was carried out over 9 months at a young offender's institution at Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire. It followed the behaviour of 231 inmates, about 75% of the prison population who had given their consent for taking part of the experiment over that period.

By monitoring the number of official reports of bad behaviour they received from prison staff. Half the prisoners took daily nutrient supplements containing 28 vitamins. Minerals and fatty acids while the rest were given placebo pills. The researchers used all the methods of a rigorous medical study to ensure the results were reliable e.g. the trial was double blind so that neither prisoners nor guards knew who got the real pills and who the dummies and it was randomised so that the prisoners on the real pills were scattered throughout the prison.

Not just grouped in to one wing. About 60 prisoners dropped out of the trial, mostly because they were transferred or released, but statistical analysis weeded out any anomalies that this might have caused. Claire: the results were startling. Prisoners taking the nutrient pills committed 37% fewer serious or violent offences than the placebo group. When the trial finished, levels of violence quickly returned to normal.

Not surprisingly many scientists are wary of reading too much in to the results. Professor Chris bates of the medical research councils human nutrition unit in Cambridge proffers a topical view. Stephen: "one always has to retain a position of scepticism until at least one or more replications produce the same results" Claire: David Benton of Swansea university who studies the link between diet and moods adds Stephen: "prison is a setting that magnifies the effect of diet because the environment is relatively similar for all, so dietary changes have an impact that would not be apparent elsewhere. Its unlikely that you could demonstrate an impact of a similar magnitude in the outside world" Claire: and Susan Jebb, also at the human nutrition unit, points out that there are many badly behaved children who have good diets, so it is clearly not at the root of all antisocial behaviour.

Stephen: however many highly respected scientists believe the research has profound implications, however, professor bates says Claire: "I do think that it is finding the that needs to be taken seriously, and deserves further research" Stephen: says bates. Peter Rogers, a psychology professor at Bristol university who researches the psychological effects of diet says the Aylesbury effect is a Claire: "remarkable result and potentially ver important. In my view it would be premature to conclude from this one study that dietary improvements will have a major impact on violent behaviour in our society, but clearly improving the nutritional quality of diets in prisons would be a good thing in many ways. Stephen: although the Aylesbury experiment has been hailed as ground breaking, similar studies have been carried out over the past 25 years. Stephen schoenthaler, a criminologist at California State University in Long Beach who is one of the leading proponents of a link between diet and crime has completed 3 trials with similar results Claire: "the Aylesbury study independently verifies what I have been advocating for 20 years".

Stephen: he says. Schoenthaler's studies have been accused of employing flawed methodology, however, and schoenthaler himself is a controversial figure. So how does the Aylesbury study compare? There have been criticisms of its methodology, for e. g., from Juliet Lyons, director of Britains prison reform trust, who points out that any form of contact with a caring adult - even a quick chat while giving a pill - could have a big impact on their behaviour.

Gesch, however, argues that the study design eliminated this possibility. The control group received exactly the same amount of contact when they were given the placebo pills, but their behaviour didn't improve significantly. Claire: perhaps the most strident critic of the link between diet and crime is Susan pease, professor of criminology at central connect uit state university in New Britain. In 1988, she co-authorised an influential review on diet and behaviour prepared for the us justice department which concluded that there wasn't enough evidence to recommend policy changes.

Pease also raises concerns about the methodology of the Aylesbury study Stephen: "many of these reports are down to the interpretation of officers" Claire: she says Stephen: "as someone who has spent a lot of time in prison doing research, I have found that less serious violations can include such thing as failure to make ones bed properly or walking outside the clearly marked taped areas of the corridors. These hardly constitute antisocial behaviour in the real world" Claire: natural justice however points out that the 37% reduction was in Stephen: " governor reports" Claire: covering serious offences that can cost a prisoner parole, such as those involving violence and not Stephen: "minor reports" Claire: for failing to comply with rules. Stephen: overall, the methodology of the Aylesbury experiment looks secure. John cop as, professor of statistics at the University Warwick and former vice president of Britains royal statistical society says: Claire: "in clinical research, this studies design would be accepted as the gold standard and the only scientifically sound way of assessing cause and effect. But in social and behaviour research this rigour is, in my experience, pretty unusual" Stephen: it is right to be sceptical when a group like natural justice bolster its own reason to be by showing that crime is closely linked to diet. This may heave been a factor in both nature and science rejecting the manuscript of guest's study, although a nature insider points out that the journal rarely publishes psychological studies, especially when there is no exploration of the biological basis for a particular behaviour.

Claire: the absence of physiological explanation for a link between diet and crime is clearly a problem Stephen: "one of the big issues is that they have used a very generic supplement, it has so many components, we can even begin to look at the mechanisms involved" Claire: she points out that the effects of a nutritional supplement may be very different depending on whether you are you are just raising peoples intake of peoples intake to the recommended daily allowance, or whether you are boosting them to beyond that by supplementing and already adequate diet. Stephen: Gesch points out that he's not advocating huge doses of anything, merely insuring that inmates reach the nutrition levels recommended by government scientists. But he admits there was nothing in this study to explain how the supplements might work. Claire: " the study was only set up to ask if the nutrition affected behaviour. The next stage is to study HOW nutrition affects behaviour" Stephen: although nutritionists admit that they know very little how diet affects our brain, they agree the omega 3 fatty acids, found primarily in oily fish such as tuna and mackerel, are important for the brains production of the mood altering neurotransmitter serotonin. Joseph hibben of the us national institute on alcoholism and alcohol abuse in Bethesda, Maryland, says: Claire: "it is plausesable that providing these prisoners with essential fatty acids improved the functioning of their serotonergic nervous system".

Claire: vitamins often help to speed up chemical reactions in the brain for e.g. vitamin b 6 is important in the synthesis of may amino acid neurotransmitters, while vitamin b 3 is essential for generating energy. Stephen: "our diet supplies the brain with its energy and the building blocks of all the neurotransmitters it uses", Claire: says Gesch. He argues that if someone's diet is poor then his or her brain is not going to work properly. One plausible outcome is antisocial behaviour. Stephen: natural justice is already planning a follow up study to pin down exactly how these micronutreints affect physiology. Gesch is working with the medical research council human nutrition unit and the home office to devise an experiment that will tell him what is actually going on prisoners' brains when they receive the pills.

They hope that blood samples and metabolite tests will finally provide some answers. The research will also investigate whether young offenders would be better served by simply eating more fruit and vegetables. Claire: researchers have been building up to the conclusion That diet may influence criminal behaviour for more than 20 years, so it seems odd that governments have failed to try any policy experiments based on this evidence. In fact, some prisoners in the us have banned supplements following the violent criminal incarceration act of 1995, which bars prisoners from undertaking Stephen: "any physical activities designed to increase there fighting ability" Stephen: a home office spokesman says that British government is still looking at the Aylesbury research, suggesting that policy changes aren't imminent.

Bates thinks this is a prudent approach, given the current state of knowledge Claire: "research in this area does take a very long time to come up with a cut and dried answer. There is no quick fix" Claire: pease also wants proof that supplements have a real biological effect Stephen: " without that, any change in policy would be foolhardy", Claire: jebb agrees that caution is necessary. Stephen: "theirs is a lot of debate about whether we should do another, larger study or whether we should simply implement the findings now. Some parts of the media have called for an immediate policy change. We feel that you need to justify any policy change with a larger more detailed scientific study". Claire: even schoenthaler, who is something of an evangelist for the idea of solving social problems by improving diet, is keen to point out that this will not work for anybody.

In studies of more than 8000 offenders, he found that a change in diet affected only about 20% of them. In other words, most behavioural problems were not due to dietary deficiencies. However, he says, most crimes are committed by a small underprivileged section of society, and it is these people who are most likely to be malnourished. so by improving the behaviour of a fifth of all offenders through dietary changes you could significantly reduce crime. Stephen: another reasons for caution is that there are risks associated with certain supplements. Britains food standards agency has just published a report that tries to establish maximum safety levels for vitamins and minerals.

For e. g., excessive consumption of vitamin b 6, which many women take to relive pre-menstrual syndrome, can damage the nervous system. Claire: cost is also a problem. Supplementing a single prisoners diet costs about lb 1 a day, but Britains prisoners budget currently allows for just lb 1.49 a day on food for young offender. Should this be a consideration? Gesch, however, already believes there is already a good argument for raising dietary standards in the wider community Stephen: " if this works in prisons, there is no reason why it shouldn't work in schools too", ASK THE GROUP WHAT THEY WOULD THINK OF THIS IDEA Claire: British schools are clearly having difficulty controlling their pupil's behaviour.

The past school year saw more than 9000 pupils expelled from state schools because of bad behaviour, an 11% increase on their previous year. Schoenthaler has already tried diet supplements in American schools, with much success. In fact, many schools in the US are now setting up micronutrient programmes for themselves. Stephen: even if natural justice can prove exactly how a bad diet cause criminal behaviour, it may then face a whole new set of problems.

In a legal system based on the concept of free will, individuals are deemed to be responsible for their own behaviour. If criminal behaviour can indeed be caused by poor nutrition, natural justice's research may give young offenders an excuse for their misdemeanors. In a few years time, we could be hearing the first " fast food" defence: "don't blame me my diet made me do it" what do you think? ARE SCHOOLS LIKE PRISONS? new scientist.