Transcendental Meditation® in Criminal Rehabilitation and Crime Prevention

In contrast to the generally dismal results of various approaches to rehabilitation, these consciousness-based strategies have proven effective in preventing crime and rehabilitating offenders!

This book will introduce you to a powerful, unique approach to offender rehabilitation and crime prevention. In contrast to the generally dismal results of most rehabilitation approaches, studies covering periods of 1-15 years indicate that this new approach—employing the Maharishi Transcendental Meditation® and TM-Sidhi programs—reduces recidivism from 35-50%.

Transcendental Meditation® in Criminal Rehabilitation and Crime Prevention provides the reader with a theoretical overview, new original research findings, and examples of practical implementation. With this book, you will explore what motivates people to commit crimes, with emphasis on stress and restricted self-development. Then you'll examine the results and policy implications of applying these consciousness-based techniques to offender rehabilitation and crime reduction. Most chapters include tables or figures that make the information easy to understand.

Transcendental Meditation® in Criminal Rehabilitation and Crime Prevention does not merely review the theory behind this innovative approach to rehabilitation and prevention but also emphasizes the practical value of the programs it describes and reports how techniques and strategies based on Transcendental Meditation® have been put to use in a variety of settings.

This book will familiarize the reader with:

• a rehabilitation approach so universal in its applicability that any adult or juvenile offender can begin it at the point of sentencing, during incarceration, or at the point of parole
• the in-depth background on adult growth and higher states of consciousness necessary to understand this consciousness-based, developmental approach
• the results of empirical studies conducted in prisons around the country, with up to 15 years of follow-up
• a preview of how cost-effective the rehabilitation program might be
• implications for public policy and the judicial system—including an innovative alternative sentencing program
• how this approach deals not only with individuals but also with the community as a whole—when practiced by a small percentage of the population, the TM and TM-Sidhi programs may reduce crime in the larger community
• how these society-level prevention programs may prove to be effecitive in reducing not only school violence in the community but, if applied on sufficient scale, war deaths and terrorism in the greater society