“Fish oil: a cure for young offenders?”

…A major trial is to be launched to see whether giving young offenders nutritional supplements reduces anti-social behaviour in prison. Its authors believe this could prove a seminal piece of research with major implications for the criminal justice system.

Young offenders, including murderers, in three institutions in the UK are to be given a cocktail of vitamins, minerals and “essential fatty acids” on top of their normal prison diet.

Their behaviour will be compared with others who are given a placebo.

Researchers, funded by the Wellcome Trust, have high hopes for the million pound trial on 1,000 volunteers – the largest of its kind – after a much smaller study did find supplements had a favourable impact on levels of violence and ill-discipline in one institution in Aylesbury.

This is not about improving prison food, which the team believe is – from a nutritional perspective at least – more than satisfactory. “The problem is that prisoners do not make good dietary choices,” says Professor John Stein of Oxford University, “and that’s what we’re trying to overcome.”