Meditation vs crime

A study published in the International Journal of Social Indicators Research has found that meditation has the power to dramatically reduce crime.

One particular meditative technique, Vipassana, is becoming increasingly widely used in prisons around the world. Vipassana requires the practitioners to spend ten days meditating in complete silence. Its use in prisons was pioneered many years ago by Ram Singh, then Home Secretary for the Indian state of Rajasthan. Having experienced the effects of meditation for himself, he managed to persuade the governors of India's notorious Jaipur Central jail to allow 100 inmates to meditate without being shackled together. According to Singh the hardened criminals, including murderers and rapists, soon had tears rolling down their cheeks, as they were forced to confront themselves. For some of them it was the first time they had shown remorse.

A number of correctional facilities in the US, England, Australia and New Zealand have now adopted meditation as a character-reforming tool or are seriously investigating doing so.