Study On Incarcerated Youth Shows Potential to Lower Anti-Social Behavior

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/10/131031140622.htm

Oct. 31, 2013 — Researchers at the New York University College of Nursing (NYUCN), the University of Miami, and the Lionheart Foundation in Boston, found that mindfulness training, a meditation-based therapy, can improve attention skills in incarcerated youth, paving the way to greater self-control over emotions and actions. It is the first study to show that mindfulness training can be used in combination with cognitive behavioral therapy to protect attentional functioning in high-risk incarcerated youth.

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The researchers found that participation in an intervention that combined cognitive behavioral therapy with mindfulness training (or "CBT/MT"), called Power Source, had a protective effect on youths' attentional capacity. This research is the largest controlled study of mindfulness training for youth to date.

"The CBT/MT approach responds to the significant childhood psychosocial hardships that most incarcerated youths have experienced, including exposure to violence, poverty, and physical and emotional abuse by caregivers," explained principal investigator Noelle R. Leonard, PhD, a Senior Research Scientist at NYUCN. "These experiences impair cognitive control processes, such as attention regulation, which is vital for the self-regulation of feelings and actions. The antisocial behavior prevalent among youthful offenders is the result of an ongoing interplay between this psychosocial adversity and deficits in cognitive control processes, particularly attention."

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"Finally," Dr. Leonard added, "We know that incarceration is not good for youth, and with this study, we have direct evidence that incarceration depletes the very processes youth need to strengthen in order to steer their developmental trajectory in a more pro-social, law-abiding direction."