Mindfulness: a multi-faceted solution to a failing criminal justice system?

honors thesisCollege of Social & Behavioral ScienceCriminologyCurrent rehabilitation programs are insufficient among U.S. prisons. A prison is often a place of intense stress, fear, and intense or anger-provoking situations. Since prison education has started to become common in more and more prisons, a course to help inmates address the daily stressors of life in prison all on their own is a crucial next step. Mindfulness meditation is precisely that course. Mindfulness has consistently demonstrated that it is a successful means to reduce stress, anxiety, and depression. It is also nearly free regarding the minimal amount of materials a course like mindfulness would require and can be practiced anywhere, anytime throughout the day. Incorporating mindfulness among prisons would help the criminal justice system focus more heavily on rehabilitation and would allow inmates to develop techniques to better control their emotions. This study hopes to shine a light on an easy-to-incorporate partial solution to the lacking rehabilitation efforts in prison and, eventually, have mindfulness take place as an option for judges to order probation/parole requirements for inmates with anger-related charges

PhD

dissertationThe marine molluscs Siphonaria pectinata, S. normalis, Onchidium verruculatum and Peronia peronii were investigated because they are trail following species, that are known to possess repugnatorial skin glands. Extraction of the skin glands of these organisms led to the isolation of the compounds, pectinatone, dihydrosiphonarins A and B, ilikonapyrone and peroniatriols I and II, respectively. The marine tunicate, Lissoclinum patella was also studied because the original methanol extract of the tunicate exhibited a variety of biological activities. A series of eight cytotoxic cyclic peptides have been isolated from this tunicate, all of which contain thiazole and oxazoline amino acids as a common structural feature