Videos of nature make violent prisoners calmer
Prisons are about as devoid of nature as a place can get. The intensive management unit’s IMUE cellblock at the Snake River Correctional Institution in Oregon has 48 men in an isolation unit for inmates convicted of heinous crimes and troublemakers removed from the general prison population. They were were prone to fights and other displays of aggression, not to mention lots of verbal conflict with prison staff.
Then the staff decided to try a different behaviour modification technique: nature videos with scenes of blue oceans, evergreen forests, majestic mountains and fluffy clouds shot from airplanes.
The results, according to a new study, were dramatic.
‘‘We found that inmates who watched nature videos committed 26 per cent fewer violent infractions,’’ study author and clinical psychotherapist Patricia H Hasbach said.
Hasbach, who presented the study yesterday at the American Psychological Association’s annual convention, conducted written surveys of the inmates. They said they liked videos with beaches, jungles and forest. In interviews, they went on about the animals, colours and, not surprisingly, open spaces, Hasbach said.
As the year-long study wore on, researchers noticed a 10 to 20 per cent decline in video viewing, possibly because there was a limited number of available videos and they were getting old.
A sergeant at Snake River saw a talk by Nalini Nadkarni, a University of Utah professor who guided the Sustainability in Prisons Project for the state of Washington’s corrections facilities. The sergeant shared the idea with his superiors, who reached out to Nadkarni, who assembled the team behind the Oregon study.
The researchers found 38 videos, and the staff placed them in an indoor fitness room that inmates visit four to five times a week for about an hour.
They could work out or watch videos or do both. The room was painted light blue to improve the viewing.
The inmates said the videos helped them feel calmer, gave them something to talk about when their families came to visit, and improved their relationships and communication with prison staff. The staff said pretty much the same.
Prison officers started allowing inmates time in what became known as the ‘‘Blue Room’’ to watch nature videos when someone appeared agitated or on edge.
More than 90 per cent of the inmates surveyed agreed that they felt calmer when they watched the nature videos. Eighty per cent said the calm was sustained for hours, and nearly 80 per cent agreed that when they felt agitated, they thought of the videos to calm themselves.
Hasbach said the experiment could be a model for correctional institutions nationwide to help limit stress, mental fatigue, violence and other negative behaviours.