A study on the results of the Washington DC Crime Reduction project has been published in the June 1999 issue of the peer-reviewed journal Social Indicators Research. This article reports on one of the most dramatic sociological experiments ever undertaken.
The demonstration project involved assembling in the D.C. area nearly 4,000 practitioners of the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi programs from 81 countries. The experiment was rigorously analyzed by a 27-member project review board composed of independent scientists and civic leaders who approved the research protocol and monitored the research process. Researchers predicted in advance that the calming influence of group meditation practice could reduce violent crime by over 20 percent in Washington, D.C., during an 8-week period in the summer of 1993.
In fact, the findings later showed that the rate of violent crime decreased by 23 percent during the June 7 to July 30 experimental period. The odds of this result occurring by chance are less than 2 in 1 billion. Rigorous statistical analyses ruled out an extensive list of alternative explanations, according to John Hagelin, lead author of the study and director of the Institute of Science, Technology and Public Policy at Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa.
The predictions were lodged in advance with a panel of prominent social scientists and civic leaders, including members of the District city council and metropolitan police force. Statistical analysis considered the effect of weather variables, daylight, police patrolling, historical crime trends and annual patterns in the District of Columbia, as well as trends in neighbouring cities.
Comments on the Study
Anne Hughes, a professor of sociology and government at the University of the District of Columbia and a member of the project review board, feels that the findings of the study have significant implications for resolving inner city violence. "What we are looking at here is a new paradigm of viewing crime and violence. I would like to recommend that this new model, which is supported by a number of exhaustive and very carefully controlled studies, be seriously considered, and that we think about ways that it might be implemented in the inner city."
David Edwards, another member of the project review board, and professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin, believes this research and the theory behind it deserve the most serious consideration. "I think the claim can be plausibly made that the potential impact of this research exceeds that of any other ongoing social or psychological research program. It has survived a broader array of statistical tests than most research in the field of conflict resolution. This work and the theory that informs it deserve the most serious consideration by academics and policy makers alike,"