European Council urged to adopt new solution to rising crime throughout EU

Tampere, Finland, 16 October 1999:

Following the failure of the European Council meeting yesterday in Finland to find effective new approaches to combat the rising levels of crime throughout Europe, the Natural Law Parties of Europe have urged EU governments to implement immediately a scientifically proven three-point action plan to cut crime rates dramatically.

At a press conference in Tampere, Timo Lahtinen, Leader of the Natural Law Party of Finland, said: "The problem of rising crime has not been solved by any EU member state. The old approaches - imposing harsher sentences, expanding the police force, building more prisons, or improving crime detection methods - have not worked. The Tampere European Council focused on improving co-operation through Europol, establishing a police academy, combating money laundering, and fighting cross-border drug crime. But the Tampere Agenda simply contains variations of old, failed approaches or, even worse, just defines goals without any solutions."

Three-point action plan

The Natural Law Parties of Europe offered to the EU practical and scientifically proven solutions that could reduce crime immediately by 20 per cent and substantially more within a few months. Their action plan to improve internal security in the EU includes three main points:

1. Immediate crime reduction by reducing social stress through "coherence-creating" groups

2. Immediate crime reduction through scientifically validated rehabilitation programmes for prisoners

3. Crime prevention through consciousness-based education programmes

"The only way to reduce the problem of crime in the European Union is to eliminate the very basis of crime: the high level of stress, tension, negativity and violence throughout society," Mr Lahtinen said. "You can't solve crime by throwing more money at the problem. Allocating additional resources is not the solution. We have to eliminate the very basis of crime. The programmes of the Natural Law Party have been tested in numerous countries around the world and the results published in leading peer-reviewed journals. If applied throughout the EU we would very quickly see a crime-free society."

Wojtek Skalski, Deputy Leader of the Natural Law Party of Finland, explained further:

"Our programme to reduce stress in society is called 'A Group for a Government'. This involves setting up coherence-creating groups of experts in Maharishi's Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi programme, including Yogic Flying. Scientific studies clearly show that this programme has the ability to reduce stress in individual and social life and increase creativity and harmony."

The Natural Law Party is active in over 80 countries around the world. Its policies are based on scientifically proven solutions to improve every area of a society by bringing life into harmony with Natural Law.

Published scientific studies support the Natural Law Party's action plan

42 of the 600 scientific studies conducted on the Natural Law Party's programmes over the past 30 years have shown significant reductions in crime and other negative trends in society.

A study published in the American journal Social Indicators Research reports on one of the most dramatic sociological experiments ever undertaken. The demonstration project involved assembling nearly 4,000 practitioners of the Transcendental Meditation and TM- Sidhi programme from 81 countries in Washington, D.C., USA, during an 8-week period in the summer of 1993. The findings showed that the rate of violent crime, which includes assaults, murders, and rape, decreased by 23 per cent during the experimental period from 7 June to 30 July. The odds of this result occurring by chance are less than two in one billion. Rigorous statistical analyses ruled out an extensive list of alternative explanations.

Another study published in the British journal Psychology, Crime and Law also has serious implications for crime prevention. The study shows that in 1988 the crime rate in Merseyside, UK, was significantly lower than the previous year, as a result of a group of people in Skelmersdale and others in Liverpool practising the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi programme. In the years 1989-1993 Merseyside crime rate performed significantly better than the national crime rate in each year. In 1987 Merseyside had the third highest crime rate in England and Wales; by 1992 it had the lowest crime rate of the 11 metropolitan areas. Overall, during the six-year period of the study, crime in Merseyside fell by 15 per cent while in the rest of the country it rose by 45 per cent.