Indian Inmates Take Yoga Classes To Reduce Jail Time

In Indian prisons, the lotus position can truly help set you free.

According to the BBC, inmates in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh are being freed early if they complete courses in yoga. The deal is as follows: for every 3 months a prisoner spends practicing yoga, he or she will cut their jail time by 15 days.

A state inspector general of prisons tells AFP: "Yoga is good for maintaining fitness, calming the behaviour, controlling anger and reducing stress."

According to the Telegraph, one prisoner reported that his anger had subsided since taking up the practice, and that he plan to become a yoga teacher. After, that is, he's released.

Comments

[TreeHouseForRent]

06:46 PM on 01/21/2010

Hey, I think alittle "chi" would go a long way to help the inmates in the USA too!

[Albert Amato]

06:04 PM on 01/21/2010

Downward Facing Dog comes easy to most of these inmates!

[Tenjikuronin]

08:33 PM on 01/21/2010

LOL......was only a matter of time before somebody made a prison sex joke.

[Euranya]

05:50 PM on 01/21/2010

Um, this is scary. Doing yoga poses does not automatically make you the master of all your bad impulses. I've been practicing yoga for 14 years and STILL consider myself to be a hothead. Doing yoga does NOT guarantee good anger management. You might feel great and calm immediately after class, but the minute someone pushes your buttons--if you're a naturally angry person like me, that is--the whole "om shanti peace" thing goes right down the drain in a split second. It's probably the same for people who have deeply ingrained criminal impulses.

[Tenjikuronin]

05:12 PM on 01/21/2010

Good, I like this decision by prison wardens.

[drfalafel]

04:41 PM on 01/21/2010

Cool. You start meditating and fall in a trans. The prison guard wakes you up in 15 years.

[Khirad]

04:29 PM on 01/21/2010

As long as it's kept secular and not like the "born-again" phenomenon of wanting to be released early as in the US. Literacy programs in addition make me think it is a more secular type yoga.

I believe learning to calm the mind could be beneficial for the world at large, never mind just prisoners. I just get uncomfortable when religion mixes with state, but am not absolute and uncompromising about that.

[raebow]

05:16 PM on 01/21/2010

Yoga -like Buddhism- is not a religion. And makes no claims to be one.

[riff4u]

06:45 PM on 01/21/2010

Yoga means yoke or to link up to the divine. It can be "secular", but since this is India it will most likely go and in and with a mixture of Hinduism and othe faiths. Buddhists meditate and do yoga as well as the various Sufi sects.

[DoesItMatter]

05:42 PM on 01/21/2010

Yoga has its origins in Indic culture of Hinduism and Buddhism.