{"id":7366,"date":"2012-06-20T15:45:58","date_gmt":"2012-06-20T19:45:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tm.org\/blog\/?p=7366"},"modified":"2012-08-27T17:31:59","modified_gmt":"2012-08-27T21:31:59","slug":"can-transcendental-meditation-help-in-the-rehabilitation-of-prison-inmates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usa.tm.org\/blog\/video\/can-transcendental-meditation-help-in-the-rehabilitation-of-prison-inmates\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Transcendental Meditation help rehabilitate prison inmates?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The number of Americans behind bars is staggering\u2014and a horrendous waste of both human and financial resources.<\/p>\n

According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics<\/a> (BJS) more than 2 million adults are incarcerated in federal and state prisons, and county jails in the United States. Additionally, more than 5 million adults are on probation or on parole. In total, more than 7 million people are under correctional supervision (probation, parole, jail, or prison) \u2014 about 3.1% of adults in the U.S. resident population.<\/p>\n

Statistics indicate that more than 65% of those released from prison are rearrested, reconvicted, and return to prison within three years of release. <\/p>\n

Can the Transcendental Meditation program help address this problem? Forty years of research and experience in the US correctional system offers a resounding \u201cYes!\u201d<\/p>\n

See what you think by watching the video below.<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n

Highlights of inmate interviews \u2013 Oregon State Correctional Institution
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Robert:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> <\/p>\n

\u201cI changed a lot from when I first got incarcerated. Once I started meditating, it just went through the roof\u2026. <\/p>\n

\u201cI used to fight a lot, now that I’ve been meditating I’m a lot more calm, and nothing angers me like it used to.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

James: <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had anger issues in my past and assaulted behavior, and this is really helping me with my anger issues. I let a lot of things go that I wouldn\u2019t have years ago, and even as long as a few months back I wouldn\u2019t have let it go. Now, it doesn\u2019t make a bit of difference to me what somebody says because I keep thinking I\u2019m going to go home, they\u2019re going to come back here. <\/p>\n

\u201cWell, I really think that this program could benefit a lot of people, if they\u2019re at that point in their life where they want to do something more. Instead of keep doing the same things over and over again and expecting some different outcome.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ledarius:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do crimes and make the wrong choices and decisions. Usually, it’s people in a rough situation, a tense situation. Either they\u2019re having family problems or they need the money, so they just react. <\/p>\n

\u201cNow, if you just take out time each day to meditate and just sit back and let everything go and don’t worry about any of your worries or problems and just let everything go and free your mind, then you\u2019re more likely to actually think it through…. If you just take out time and meditate and just let everything go and free your mind, everything comes together. <\/p>\n

\u201cBefore meditation, I wasn\u2019t really patient with people\u2026. I would just lose my temper instantly\u2014just go off. But now I can actually just like sit back, breath a couple seconds, take time out, and just be patient with them, and then everything seems to go the way I want it to.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sisi:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cI just tell them I\u2019m spending time with myself. That\u2019s actually what it really is, just spending time with your inner self, and everybody inside is a good person, you know, we just make bad choices.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSpending time with myself actually makes me feel good. I\u2019m actually starting to know who I am.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Kevin:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing that resonated most deeply with me was just the chance at being happy. I hadn’t realized for how many years that I\u2019ve always had a low-grade depression\u2014it really was, probably ever since ten years old\u2014I just really had been miserable with being myself. In just this last month I felt so much energy it’s been amazing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI actually consider that the department of corrections would be changed dramatically by making TM available to anyone who could learn it. The reason being, is the systems broke, and this is the first time I felt this sort of health that I think everyone should have the opportunity to feel this healthy and continue on and grow. You can\u2019t change the system, but you can change the people inside of it; and by changing that, it will change the system.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Jake: <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve taken all these programs, I\u2019ve been in here a long time and I\u2019ve taken all their other programs for cognitive thinking and its kind of to change the way you think and you look at the world is what they\u2019re trying to get you to do, so it\u2019s not all about you, you know, but if you\u2019re not ready for that or you\u2019re not mature enough for that, then stuff doesn\u2019t take. It\u2019s just a place to go to make your counselor happy\u2014to get your good time or whatever. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think that the TM should be the first thing that they offer and then build on it with these other programs once you\u2019ve been integrated with TM, that\u2019s my point of view from being here so long. It\u2019s that the way your brains working from when you first get here needs to change first before any of those programs can be effective.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"
\n__________________________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Research has shown that the Transcendental Meditation technique can reduce prisoner recidivism while simultaneously developing psychological functioning. For a summary of the research go to:
\n \u201cTranscendental Meditation in Criminal Rehabilitation and Crime Prevention<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n

For a link to the research on the effect of TM on rehabilitation conducted at Folsom State Prison in California, CLICK HERE<\/a>. <\/p>\n

__________________________________________________________<\/p>\n

Guest Blogger: Arielle Feldman is from Potomac, MD and is currently a sophomore at Towson University.<\/a><\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The number of Americans behind bars is staggering\u2014and a horrendous waste of both human and financial resources. According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) more than 2 million adults are incarcerated in U.S. Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66,61],"tags":[32,300],"class_list":["post-7366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research","category-video","tag-stress","tag-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.tm.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.tm.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.tm.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.tm.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.tm.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usa.tm.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7366\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.tm.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.tm.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.tm.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}