Mindfulness for prisoners?

By Sarah Harvey

Mindfulness for prisoners?
Some of Britain's most dangerous criminals are set to be taught mindfulness in an attempt to aid their rehabilitation and quell violent impulses.
In an unusual step, yet to be seen in New Zealand or Australia, about 60 of Britain’s most violent held in the country’s highest-security prisons will have access to one-on-one training by psychologists and prison officers, according to The Guardian.

The course is aimed at reducing stress. Mindfulness is already taught to the public by alternative health practitioners and is used in places such as hospitals to make nurses and doctors more concentrated on the task at hand and therefore more productive.

This, however, is a different clientele.

The inmates included in the trial include those who have murdered, attempted to murder, taken hostages or committed other serious crimes while in jail and are taken into isolation for others’ safety.

According to The Guardian they include double killer Mark Robinson, who last year hospitalised five prison officers after becoming upset about his bread ration.

“The idea is to incorporate it as part of the day-to-day regime of our close supervision centres,” Mark Campion, the wellbeing strategy manager for the prison service’s high-security prisons group, told The Guardian.

“Some won’t engage. You can’t force people to do mindfulness. It is on a need basis agreed by both prisoner and the prison psychologist.”

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