Behind bars: Food for thought

Behind Bars and indeed its husband are dieting this month, not that either of us are fat of course, but purely as a precautionary measure. Put it this way, one can see that one could with remarkably little trouble become porky, and a couple more blueberry muffins might just tip the balance.

The difficulty with dieting, as fellow potential porkers know, is that one's mind runs greatly to food. Not snacking means bypassing bun shops and delis, musing miserably that miso soup even with added spring onion is not a mid-morning delight, but more like a punishment devised by Presbyterian forebears who had once visited Japan. Even voluntary and, please god, temporary deprivation fuels my fascination with the stuff: food is a pleasure, a comfort, the source of energy and creativity, life enhancing '“ damn it, food is life. Eggs Benedict in a herby Hollandaise sauce on a lightly toasted muffin, or thin slices of guinea fowl cooked slowly with sage and apricots, followed by a small(ish) portion of bread and butter pudding made with a vanilla pod and double cream '“ that's a proper lunch. A briny dolphin-hostile tuna portion slumped on wizened bread in a barristers' canteen is not.

Why do barristers have to eat such horrible food? Do we not suffer enough? How can one fight the good fight in a body cross because it has been abused by luncheon? And it's not just us: how can jurors properly abide by their oath as their insides churn with diet coke and cold pasta salad? And as for defendants lunching on microwaved pap in a molten plastic container, how can they participate in their trial anytime after 1.15pm? But dyspeptic jurors and even dieting briefs can keep body and soul together when released from court. Defendants have to go to prison. And have to eat prison food. But never having tasted the stuff,I expect I am doing it down.

According to the World Health Organization prisoners eat better inside than out, which doesn't say much for our national cuisine but does imply that the government is trying to raise the porridge standard at least. Healthy options are apparently available, some

prisons try to limit chips, while salad is on the menu. But weirdly prisoners choose chips over lettuce, and sponge pud and custard over an apple. Well, wouldn't you? We all go for mood-food when we need it. But proper mood-food is a serious nutritional issue and extraordinarily relevant to criminal justice.

We all know in our gut that nutrition must affect mood and behaviour, particularly in the young, which is why Jamie Oliver struck such a chord with his school meals campaign. Bernard Gesch is the Jamie Oliver of the criminal justice system. Once a probation officer, he is now a senior researcher in the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics at Oxford University and the director of Natural Justice. Natural Justice is a charity '“ of which Lord Ramsbotham, ex-inspector of prisons is

vice-chairman '“ which tries to find natural science based solutions for criminal and anti-social behaviour. Nutrition is a big area of their work. Gesch and Natural Justice were responsible for the key UK study which tested links between nutrition and anti-social behaviour in the inmates of HM Young Offenders Institute in Aylesbury.

In a double blind randomised placebo controlled experiment where no inmate nor staff member knew who got what, one group were given the RDA of mineral, vitamin and fatty acid supplements ( omega 6 and omega 3). The other group got placebos. Differences in behaviour between the groups were measured by governors's reports and minor disciplinary reports. And guess what? The group on supplements saw a 26 per cent reduction in the rate of recorded disciplinary incidents and a 37 per cent reduction in more serious and violent offences reported to the governor.

The Home Office approved study began in 1997 and reported finally in 2002. By anyone's reckoning, impressive results '“ and recognised by other countries who have taken up Gesch's work '“ The Netherlands are particularly enthusiastic, and are rolling out trials in prison. As Gesch said in April 2007 to the Associate Parliamentary Food and Health Forum which is preparing a report on diet and behaviour, nutritional intervention is both highly cost effective and risk free. He believes that conventional intervention in offending behaviour if too early can be prejudicial and lead to more bad behaviour, intervening too late can result in unchecked offending '“ the only 'risk' from early intervention with a nutritional approach is better health. And it's cheap '“ Lord Ramsbotham estimates that it would cost roughly £3.5m to give the correct balance of nutrients across the prison service, leading to a 40 per cent reduction in violent behaviour '“ tempting surely when compared to the cost of other intervention programmes, the increasing need for 'risk reduction'under the Criminal Justice Act 2003 sentencing provisions, and the enormous cost of custody itself.

So what has happened since 2002? One might expect that the government, keenly interested as in it is reducing anti-social behaviour, would embrace the nutritional approach and fall sobbing on the necks of the people who discovered it. But they did not. There have been interminable delays, funding difficulties, queries about quality control of the methodology used, endless debate about suitable prisons for the further full scale trials the Home Office want, giving a strong sense of disinclination in the Home Office to go for this option.

The good news is that, finally, 10 years on, further trials '“ funded by independent research money raised by Natural Justice '“ will begin this year. But that unfortunately is only the beginning. The Home Office answer to a question at the Parliamentary forum about when they would consider enough research had been undertaken was not exactly encouraging '“ National Offender Management

Service require interventions to be 'effective and cost effective' '“ and then they compare them with competing demands for resources. Like comparing the £3.5m cost of just giving supplements to the many millions that cognitive skills approaches have already cost perhaps? Let's hope that good sense gets on the menu soon.