Improved Quality of City Life through the Transcendental Meditation Program: Decreased Crime Rate

This investigation focused on the relationship between percentage of the population in a city practicing the Transcendental Meditation technique in a given year and change in crime rate in the year following. Results indicate that a sudden downward shift in the trend of increasing crime rate occurred when about one percent of a city population had begun the Transcendental Meditation technique. In 1973 crime increased in 76 percent of the cities in the United States in the population range 25,000-50,000 with less than 0.97 percent of their P.Opulations practicing the TM technique at the end of 1972, whereas crime decreased in all U.S. cities in this population range with 0.97 percent or more of their populations practicing the technique at the end of 1972. A comparison of the 11 U.S. cities with populations over 25,000 with 0.97 percent or more of their populations practicing the TM technique at the end of 1972 (one-percent cities) with 11 matched control cities showed that the mean change in crime rate from 1972 to 1973 among the control cities ( +8.3 percent) was significantly different from that observed among the one-percent cities ( -8.2 percent). Further analysis indicated that factors other than the cities reaching about one percent of their populations practicing the TM technique were unlikely to account for the subsequent change in crime rate in these cities. These results are consistent with the prediction made by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, founder of the Transcendental Meditation program, that when about one percent of a population practices the TM technique a ''phase transition'' in society toward more harmonious functioning will occur. Therefore, this phenomenon has been named the "Maharishi Effect."