CRIME AND DIET
In Erewhon, Samuel Butler’s satirical 19th century novel, criminals are sent to the hospital and treated with proper diet, while the sick are put in jail because they have violated the laws of nature and health.
The wisdom of treating crime and anti-social behavior as an illness has been increasingly demonstrated in macrobiotic and natural foods prison projects around the world and in nutritional studies and research.
• Sugar and Theft - In a double-blind study, Doris J. Rapp, M.D. reported that four young persons with a history of stealing stopped altogether after being place on a restricted diet. However, when the therapy was discontinued and the former diet high in sugar and other refined carbohydrates was resumed, stealing resumed.
Source: Doris J. Rapp, M.D., “Food Allergy Treatment for Hyperkinesis,” Journal of Learning Disabilities 12(9):42-50, 1979.
• Sugar Linked to Violent Behavior - Frank Kern, assistant director at Tidewater Detention Center in Chesapeake, Virginia, a state facility for juvenile offenders, decided to initiate some dietary reforms in a macrobiotic direction. In 1979 he arranged an experiment in which sugar was taken out of the meals and snacks of 24 inmates. The boys, aged 12 to 18, were jailed for offenses that ranged from disorderly conduct, larceny, and burglary to alcohol and narcotics violations. Coke machines were removed from the premises and fruit juice substituted in vending machines for soft drinks, while honey and other milder sweeteners were substituted for refined sugar. The three-month trial was designed as a double-blind case-control study so that neither the detention center personnel nor the inmates knew that they were being tested. At the end of the trial period, the regular staff records on inmates’ behavior were checked against a control group of 34 youngsters who had been institutionalized previously. Researchers found that the youngsters on the modified diet exhibited a 45 percent lower incidence of formal disciplinary actions and antisocial behavior than the control group. Follow-up studies over the next year showed that after limiting sugar there was an 82 percent reduction in assaults, 77 percent reduction in thefts, 65 percent reduction in horseplay, and 55 percent reduction in refusal to obey orders. The researchers also found that “the people most likely to show improvement were those who had committed violent acts on the outside.”
Source: S. Schoenthaler, Ph.D., “The Effect of Sugar on the Treatment and Control of Antisocial Behavior,” International Journal of Biosocial Research 3(1):1-9, 1982.
• Macrobiotics in a Portuguese Maximum-Security Prison - In 1979 several inmates at the Central Prison in Linho outside of Lisbon, Portugal, began eating macrobiotically and attending lectures on Oriental philosophy and medicine. Soon 30 prisoners had become macrobiotic, and prison officials allowed them to use a large kitchen where they cooked and ate together several times a week. Linho, a maximum security institution, housed Portugal’s most dangerous criminals, including José Joaquim (known as “Al Capone”), a celebrated safecracker, and Antonio (To Zé) José Aréal, mastermind of a gang of armed robbers and kidnappers that had been the object of a nation-wide manhunt. As a result of attitude and behavioral changes, To Zé and most of the other prisoners attending classes received commutations and were released early. “[T]here is a great difference in them, especially in those who have left the prison,” Senhor Alfonso, a prison administrator, noted, commenting on the macrobiotic group. “It is not easy to describe—for one thing I can say that now they take more initiative. Actually, there is no problem here with anyone who is macrobiotic; this way of life enjoys a very good reputation. I believe the food and the outside stimulus both helped. The food can change people.” To Zé went on to study at the Kushi Institute in Boston and taught macrobiotics in New Bedford, site of a large Portuguese-speaking population, before returning to teach and help other prisoners in Portugal.
Source: Meg Seaker, “Fighting Crime with Diet: Report from a Portuguese Prison,” East West Journal, July, 1982, pp. 26-34.
• Diet Reduces Recidivism - A Cleveland probation official reported a low rate of recidivism among youthful offenders given nutritionally balanced meals. Barbara Reed of the Cuyahoga Falls Municipal Probation Department reported that of 318 offenders, 252 required attention to their diet, and “we have not had one single person back in court for trouble who has maintained and stayed on the nutritional diet.”
Later, Reed reported that more than a thousand ex-offenders had completed her dietary program, and of those who remained on the diet, 89 percent had not been rearrested over the past five years.
Sources: Barbara Reed, statement before the Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs of the U.S. Senate, June 22, 1977 and in Michio Kushi et al., Crime and Diet (Tokyo and New York: Japan Publications, 1987), p. 149.
• Milk Consumption Linked to Juvenile Delinquency - High milk consumption was connected with juvenile delinquency in a study by criminologists. Researchers at the University of Washington monitored the die-tary intake of 30 chronic youthful offenders and compared them to a group of behaviorally disordered children from the local school district in Tacoma, Wash. They found that the male offenders consumed an average of 64 ounces of milk a day, while the control group rank an average of 30 ounces. For girls, the figures were 35 and 17 ounces respectively. “In some situations,” they concluded, “eliminating milk from the diet can result in dramatic improvements in behavior, especially in hyperactive children.” They cited other studies showing that up to 90 percent of offenders had a history of milk intolerance or allergy.
Source: Alexander Schauss, Diet, Crime, and Delinquency (Berkeley, Calif.: Parker House, 1981), pp. 13-14.