Science

Whether it’s a children’s soccer league run by parent volunteers or an adult hockey team whose players spend as much time socializing as shooting pucks, amateur sports play a vital role in enhancing community engagement and public health.

A new report by Brock University researchers highlights the importance of community sport groups and what can be done at the provincial level to support them.

Published last month, Provincial Sport Policy in Ontario: Trends, Issues, and Ways Forward summarizes insights from three years of research involving discussions with sport sector organizers and provincial sport organizations that govern amateur sport in the province. The report addresses community sport groups’ need for leadership and support as more responsibilities are placed on them by the provincial and federal governments as well as sport governing bodies.

These groups continue to experience challenges with sport policy that hinders their organization’s ability to carry out their mandates and reach their goals and objectives, says Associate Professor of Sport Management Kyle Rich, one of three authors of the report and lead researcher on the project.

“The sport club system in Ontario is in a precarious place that is disconnected and fragmented. We don’t have direction, and support within the system hasn’t increased with the amount of work and expectations that’s being put on those organizations,” he says.

Rich offers an example of community sport organizations being asked to prioritize “safe sport,” which involves creating athletic environments that are respectful, equitable and free from harassment and abuse.

“Safe sport initiatives are obviously very important, and to implement them well, it takes extra time, work and understanding,” he says.

“It’s a whole new way of thinking about how we structure policy and the expectations we put on sport organizations, coaches and managers. Some of these community organizations are led by parents or grandparents doing it because they want their kids to have somewhere to play; they don’t necessarily have the resources, skills or capacity to navigate these new policies, rules and regulations.”

Rich’s research team has been examining the role of provincial policy related to sport in Ontario since 2021. Their work culminated with a series of discussions about policy development and implementation in the province. The recently published report summarizes insights from these discussions into four key findings and outlines three main recommendations with detailed actions for both the provincial government and provincial sport organizations.

Recommendations include creating a provincial amateur sport plan or framework; building a collective voice for amateur sport; and leveraging provincial sport expertise, resources and capacity.

The publication of the report comes at an especially critical time, says Rich, as the Government of Ontario just established the Ministry of Sport, dedicated specifically to building a strong sport system in Ontario, this past June.

“There is an urgent need for sport policy reform in the province, and we now have the mechanisms and processes in place to enhance sport policy and development in Ontario,” he says. “If we want community sports groups to operate as professional organizations, and to implement important policies around things like safe sport and equity in sport as well as continuing to be the development system for elite athletes, then we need to support them in making these changes.”

The drug rapamycin could prevent the epilepsy medication sodium valproate from causing developmental problems during pregnancy.

Sodium valproate is used to treat epilepsy, bipolar disorder and sometimes migraines. Although effective, it isn’t recommended during pregnancy because it can cause congenital conditions such as spina bifida, as well as lifelong learning difficulties.

Giovanni Pietrogrande at the University of Queensland in Australia and his colleagues wanted to understand why sodium valproate can have such effects. So they used stem cells to create mini spinal cords, called organoids, in the laboratory. These mimic the spines of fetuses in the early weeks of pregnancy.

When the organoids were exposed to sodium valproate, their cells changed in ways that can be linked to the risk of a congenital condition.

Searching for why this might be, the team found that activity in one of the cells’ signalling pathways, called mTOR, indicated that they were going through senescence. This is a process where cells stop multiplying but don’t die off, and instead continue to release chemicals that can cause inflammation.

Rapamycin, which was first developed as an immune suppressant but is showing some promise for its anti-ageing effects, also targets the mTOR pathway.

In another experiment, the researchers exposed a new set of spinal organoids to a combination of sodium valproate and rapamycin, finding that senescence didn’t occur. They then replicated the tests in zebra fish larvae, and similarly found that the cells didn’t go into senescence and showed no signs of the changes that occurred when cells were exposed to sodium valproate alone.

Rather than doctors taking people with epilepsy off sodium valproate if they are, or might become, pregnant, we could one day prevent its negative effects by combining it with rapamycin, says Pietrogrande. Studies in people are required before this can be recommended.

Frank Vajda at the University of Melbourne says sodium valproate is a “terribly important drug and the single most effective treatment for generalised seizures”, when abnormal electrical activity begins in both halves of the brain at the same time.

“I think this is a very important paper that may lead to this drug being restored to its level of importance prior to the discovery of its adverse effects,” he says.

Greenwashing scandals—the practice of misleading the public about what action a company or organization is taking to protect the environment—are on the rise. As the climate crisis intensifies, greenwashing represents a significant obstacle to meeting global climate change goals.

A recent example was the organizing committee for the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, which vowed to design the most eco-friendly games in history by halving plastic waste. However, the commitment later sparked concerns of greenwashing because of the overuse of plastic bottles and cups by its sponsor Coca-Cola. For its part, Coca-Cola said it “supported ambitions” “to reduce single-use plastic and added that it had also provided soda fountains and glass bottles at the games to that end.

Other high-profile examples include the oil major Shell, airlines AirFrance, Etihad, and Lufthansa, and the bank HSBC, all of which have had adverts banned in the UK because they were accused of misleading the public about the reality of their climate efforts.

Shell said it disagreed that the adverts misrepresented its environmental impact, while Etihad and Lufthansa changed the wording of their adverts after the ruling. HSBC said it would consider how best to engage its customers in the transition to a low-carbon economy.

All this begs the question: what on earth were the boards doing all this time? Board directors these days are under pressure to drive environmental change in their organizations. As part of their monitoring and advisory duties, they are also expected to ensure that corporate activities align with global climate change goals.

We recently examined a group of large US companies, looking at their carbon performance and how the make-up of their board affects the business’s action on the environment.

The effectiveness of a board still largely depends on its composition and the independence of its members.

A board of directors is a governing body that is elected by shareholders to oversee the activities of a company. It is made up of a mix of internal and external directors, bringing different perspectives to balance power and enhance strategic decision-making. The UK corporate governance code serves as the country’s blueprint for effective boards.

Co-opted boards are when directors are appointed after the chief executive of the company assumed office. Co-opted directors may play a pivotal role in the boardroom as they bring specialized expertise and experience. But at the same time, there are often concerns about their independence. They may not maintain the same level of impartiality and scrutiny over the chief executive’s activities to avoid “biting the hand that feeds them.”

But it’s not straightforward. Some studies support a “dark” side of co-opted boards by showing that they encourage corporate misconduct and foster erratic decision-making. But other studies have shown a “bright” side as they provide more informed advice and bring unique expertise that lowers the cost of capital and facilitates innovation.

The same contradictions can be found when it comes to environmental performance. While some researchers maintain that co-opted boards oversee fewer environmental controversies and improve waste management practices, others point out their negative effects on environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance and leave them facing higher risks from climate change.

Faced with these mixed findings, our research looked at co-opted boards to see how they are affecting the carbon performance of companies operating in industries where climate change impacts their economic value. We studied a sample of large US companies that were part of the Russell 3000 index (comprising around 98% of the country’s listed companies).

We found that co-opted boards are decreasing greenhouse gas emissions intensity for these industries. In other industries, where company value is not impacted by climate change, we found no effect. However, we also show that this relationship varies over time and emissions can begin to fall more slowly when there is research and development investments.

While co-opted boards may help to improve the carbon performance of organizations, their presence also seems to be associated with over-investment in inefficient research and development projects. This could be things like poorly designed carbon-reduction programs or unproven renewable technologies. It means that they can end up approving projects that are not actually aligned with a company’s financial and ESG goals.

Three ways companies can become greener

A first step is prioritizing the appointment of independent directors who have no ties with the chief executive, other top executives or major stakeholders to provide objective oversight and hold managers to account for their environmental action (or inaction).

Regulators have a role to play by establishing clear guidelines for how boards should be made up, and their independence. Investors, particularly large ones, can also use their influence through resolutions and votes to push for more action on climate change.

A second step lies in appointing directors with climate change expertise to ensure that the board possesses the skills to oversee the impact and dependencies of climate change on their organizations. Training programs for directors can also help to build climate change literacy in the boardroom.

A last step is being more transparent about the roles and responsibilities of directors in overseeing climate change initiatives.

Clear carbon-reduction targets and more details about how environmental expertise is integrated into decision-making should be disclosed in annual reports to demonstrate a company’s commitment to addressing climate change and building trust with stakeholders.

These three steps can help ensure that co-opted boards really drive climate change action. Prioritizing impact over image will be crucial to fighting greenwashing and building a more sustainable future.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Simply placing as few as four live ants into a container of milk provides enough microbes, enzymes and acids to kickstart the fermentation process that creates yogurt.

Today, most yogurts are produced by fermenting milk using commercially made starters. However, the industrialisation of the process has meant that countless traditional fermentation practices from around the world are overlooked.

In places including Turkey, Albania, Bulgaria and Macedonia, researchers…

Deposits of ice in lunar dust and rock (regolith) are more extensive than previously thought, according to a new analysis of data from NASA’s LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter) mission. Ice would be a valuable resource for future lunar expeditions. Water could be used for radiation protection and supporting human explorers, or broken into its hydrogen and oxygen components to make rocket fuel, energy, and breathable air.

Prior studies found signs of ice in the larger permanently shadowed regions (PSRs) near the lunar South Pole, including areas within Cabeus, Haworth, Shoemaker and Faustini craters. In the new work, “We find that there is widespread evidence of water ice within PSRs outside the South Pole, towards at least 77 degrees south latitude,” said Dr. Timothy P. McClanahan of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and lead author of a paper on this research published October 2 in The Planetary Science Journal.

The study further aids lunar mission planners by providing maps and identifying the surface characteristics that show where ice is likely and less likely to be found, with evidence for why that should be. “Our model and analysis show that greatest ice concentrations are expected to occur near the PSRs’ coldest locations below 75 Kelvin (-198°C or -325°F) and near the base of the PSRs’ poleward-facing slopes,” said McClanahan.

“We can’t accurately determine the volume of the PSRs’ ice deposits or identify if they might be buried under a dry layer of regolith. However, we expect that for each surface 1.2 square yards (square meter) residing over these deposits there should be at least about five more quarts (five more liters) of ice within the surface top 3.3 feet (meter), as compared to their surrounding areas,” said McClanahan. The study also mapped where fewer, smaller, or lower-concentration ice deposits would be expected, occurring primarily towards warmer, periodically illuminated areas.

Ice could become implanted in lunar regolith through comet and meteor impacts, released as vapor (gas) from the lunar interior, or be formed by chemical reactions between hydrogen in the solar wind and oxygen in the regolith. PSRs typically occur in topographic depressions near the lunar poles. Because of the low sun angle, these areas haven’t seen sunlight for up to billions of years, so are perpetually in extreme cold.

Ice molecules are thought to be repeatedly dislodged from the regolith by meteorites, space radiation, or sunlight and travel across the lunar surface until they land in a PSR where they are entrapped by extreme cold. The PSR’s continuously cold surfaces can preserve ice molecules near the surface for perhaps billions of years, where they may accumulate into a deposit that is rich enough to mine. Ice is thought to be quickly lost on surfaces that are exposed to direct sunlight, which precludes their accumulations.

The team used LRO’s Lunar Exploration Neutron Detector (LEND) instrument to detect signs of ice deposits by measuring moderate-energy, “epithermal” neutrons. Specifically, the team used LEND’s Collimated Sensor for Epithermal Neutrons (CSETN) that has a fixed 18.6-mile (30-kilometer) diameter field-of-view.

Neutrons are created by high-energy galactic cosmic rays that come from powerful deep-space events such as exploding stars, that impact the lunar surface, break up regolith atoms, and scatter subatomic particles called neutrons. The neutrons, which can originate from up to about a 3.3-foot (meter’s) depth, ping-pong their way through the regolith, running into other atoms. Some get directed into space, where they can be detected by LEND.

Since hydrogen is about the same mass as a neutron, a collision with hydrogen causes the neutron to lose relatively more energy than a collision with most common regolith elements. So, where hydrogen is present in regolith, its concentration creates a corresponding reduction in the observed number of moderate-energy neutrons.

“We hypothesized that if all PSRs have the same hydrogen concentration, then CSETN should proportionally detect their hydrogen concentrations as a function of their areas. So, more hydrogen should be observed towards the larger-area PSRs,” said McClanahan.

The model was developed from a theoretical study that demonstrated how similarly hydrogen-enhanced PSRs would be detected by CSETNs fixed-area field-of-view. The correlation was demonstrated using the neutron emissions from 502 PSRs with areas ranging from 1.5 square miles (4 km²) to 417 square miles (1079 km²) that contrasted against their surrounding less hydrogen-enhanced areas. The correlation was expectedly weak for the small PSRs but increased towards the larger-area PSRs.

The next time you’re looking to cheer up a friend or loved one, giving them a small gift—flowers, candy, a homemade treat—may lift their spirits faster and better than a supportive talk.

A new research paper co-authored by Hillary Wiener, assistant professor of marketing at UAlbany’s Massry School of Business, finds that receivers of support “perceive a gift to be a larger sacrifice” by the support giver rather than a conversation. This perceived difference in sacrifice results in gifts being more effective at “promoting emotional recovery” or, in other words, making recipients feel better.

The paper, “Money can buy me love: Gifts are a more effective form of acute social support than conversations,” was published in August by the Journal of Consumer Psychology. Co-authors are Holly Howe from HEC Montreal and Tanya Chartrand from Duke University.

“A gift that’s given—outside of a birthday or holidays—feels more like they were really thinking about you. They went out of their way to do something special for you,” Wiener says of the findings. “And it’s that feeling of being cared about that makes people feel better.”

The research deployed seven studies, including a behavioral analysis of live interactions between 81 pairs of genuine friends with actual sacrifices of time and money. In that study, the friends were assigned roles of “support givers” and “support receivers.”

The latter group wrote private notes, unseen by researchers, about situations for which they wanted support. The former group, the givers, were further divided to either give a small gift or to have a talk with their friend. Researchers checked to ensure the gifts and time were of comparable value. As expected, the support recipients reported feeling better after receiving the gifts versus having the talks. The six other studies examined aspects such as why recipients perceive gifts as a larger sacrifice, the intentionality of the gift and how direct enjoyment plays a role.

Wiener knows that the finding may seem counterintuitive, perhaps even controversial to some.

“I think there’s this idea in society that … talking to others can be difficult and that you shouldn’t just buy your way out of doing it,” says Wiener. “What I really like about this finding is that it’s kind of a win-win where the thing that feels easier for the giver is actually more beneficial for recipient.”

Wiener and her researcher partners acknowledge more studies need to be done and caution that constant gifts and higher perceived levels of sacrifice could actually cause feelings of indebtedness or even guilt in the recipient. If you’re thinking that springing for a shared gift experience, like a spa treatment or kayaking trip is the perfect answer, the researchers say to consider that the gesture could be perceived by the recipient as partially self-motivated.

Still, the next time you want to help lift someone’s spirits and you’re tempted to talk it out, maybe reach for the gift wrap instead.

Gravitational wave signals that seem to emanate from black hole collisions may actually come from the clashes of odd, exotic stars – which have been theorised but may or may not exist. If they do, then physicists will have to rethink their standard theories of gravity and particles.

For almost 60 years, researchers have been thinking up cosmic objects that may be possible if there is more to gravity than is suggested by Albert Einstein’s…

Pockets of microbes have been found living within a sealed fracture in a 2-billion-year-old rock. The rock was excavated from the Bushveld Igneous Complex in South Africa, an area known for its rich ore deposits. This is the oldest example of living microbes being found within ancient rock so far discovered.

The team involved in the study built on its previous work to perfect a technique involving three types of imaging—infrared spectroscopy, electron microscopy and fluorescent microscopy—to confirm that the microbes were indigenous to the ancient core sample and not caused by contamination during the retrieval and study process.

The work is published in the journal Microbial Ecology.

Research on these microbes could help us better understand the very early evolution of life, as well as the search for extraterrestrial life in similarly aged rock samples brought back from Mars.

Deep in the Earth lies something ancient and alive. Colonies of microbes live in rocks far beneath the surface, somehow managing to survive for thousands, even millions of years. These tiny, resilient organisms appear to live life at a slower pace, scarcely evolving over geological time spans and so offering us a chance to peek back in time. Now, researchers have found living microbes in a rock sample dated to be 2 billion years old.

“We didn’t know if 2-billion-year-old rocks were habitable. Until now, the oldest geological layer in which living microorganisms had been found was a 100-million-year-old deposit beneath the ocean floor, so this is a very exciting discovery. By studying the DNA and genomes of microbes like these, we may be able to understand the evolution of very early life on Earth,” said Yohey Suzuki, lead author and associate professor from the Graduate School of Science at the University of Tokyo.

The rock sample was taken from the Bushveld Igneous Complex (BIC), a rocky intrusion in northeastern South Africa which formed when magma slowly cooled below the Earth’s surface. The BIC covers an area of approximately 66,000 square kilometers (roughly the size of Ireland), varies in thickness by up to 9 km, and contains some of the richest ore deposits on Earth, including about 70% of the world’s mined platinum.

Due to the way it was formed and minimal deformation or change occurring to it since then, the BIC is believed to have provided a stable habitat for ancient microbial life to continue until today.

With the aid of the International Continental Scientific Drilling Program, a nonprofit organization that funds exploration at geological sites, the team obtained a 30-centimeter-long rock core sample from about 15 meters belowground.

The rock was cut into thin slices and analyzed, which is when the team discovered living microbial cells densely packed into cracks in the rock. Any gaps near these cracks were clogged with clay, making it impossible for the organisms to leave or for other things to enter.

The team built on a technique they had previously developed to confirm that the microbes were native to the rock sample, and not due to contamination during the drilling or examination process. By staining the DNA of the microbial cells and using infrared spectroscopy to look at the proteins in the microbes and surrounding clay, the researchers could confirm that the microorganisms were both alive and not contaminated.

“I am very interested in the existence of subsurface microbes not only on Earth, but also the potential to find them on other planets,” said Suzuki.

“While Martian rocks are generally much older (20 billion to 30 billion years old), NASA’s Mars rover Perseverance is currently due to bring back rocks that are a similar age to those we used in this study. Finding microbial life in samples from Earth from 2 billion years ago and being able to accurately confirm their authenticity makes me excited for what we might be able to now find in samples from Mars.”

Students at UK universities are less likely to get a top degree—a first or 2:1—if they are from an ethnic minority.

This is known as the race or ethnicity award gap. It is measured by comparing the proportion of white undergraduates who receive a top degree with the proportion of students of color who do so. In 2023, the gap stood at 12.3%.

However, this gap varies for UK students from different minority ethnic communities. In 2023 there was a 19.3% difference between the number of white and Black students receiving a first or 2:1.

Universities have been taking measures to address this gap. But my research shows that they have been looking at the problem in the wrong way.

Current university responses to the race award gap are driven by an assumption that the issue lies in the curriculum. The presumption is that because the knowledge students need to acquire at university is based on a largely white and Eurocentric body of literature or tradition of learning, this favors students from these backgrounds.

As a result, many universities have attempted to address this by decolonizing their curricula: introducing literature and viewpoints from scholars of color and involving their student body in developing how courses are taught.

Research on the impact of these curriculum-based initiatives has shown that they improve the general learning experiences of university students. But they have had little or no effect in reducing the race award gap.

In 2021, I undertook one of the first research projects specifically on race and assessment in higher education.

My new book on this research work shows that we have been looking in the wrong place for solutions. Instead, universities need to address the racial barriers that exist in how student knowledge and understanding is assessed in higher education.

Ideal students

I found that existing university assessment and the practice and policy around assessment is all framed around an imagined “ideal student.” This is a student who, for example, can attend all lectures and seminars and understands the jargon-heavy language used in guides to assessments. They feel safe and that they belong at university, and have family and friends who can support them with coursework.

When we look at which students are most likely to fit this profile, we find that they are usually white, middle class, able-bodied and neurotypical.

Students of color are comparatively less likely to be able to afford to live on campus, meaning that they are more likely to be commuter students. They are also statistically more likely to need to find paid employment to support their studies and to have family or caring responsibilities. They are more likely to be the first in their family to go to university, and are more likely to be from poorer households.

The consequence for students who fall outside of the ideal student frame is that they usually have to work much harder for the same results.

Missing knowledge

My research found that students of color are less likely to arrive at university with a clear understanding of when to start working on their assignments, what their assessments were asking them to do, what was expected in their assignments and how to do them, and finally, the differences between a stronger and weaker piece of work and why.

I also found that existing teaching on how to write an essay or carry out coursework, for instance, often failed to teach students of color these hidden lessons for success. This leaves students to learn through a costly process of trial and error.

In response to these student needs and the gaps in existing in assessment practice, I developed the Racially Inclusive Practice in Assessment Guidance Intervention—a collection of teaching resources, training and workshops to help frontline lecturing staff provide this specific assessment support in their practice.

I trialed the resource on a sample of 175 students across three UK universities in 2022. The results show that this is the first intervention to date to directly and measurably reduce the race award gap across multiple higher education providers.

In 83% of the course modules where the lecturer had made use of the resource, the reported award gap was lower than the 8.8% national average that year, and also lower than the average award gap at the university where the module was taught. The gap was also lower than it had been for the same modules in the previous two years.

The resource also improved the assessment experiences of students from all backgrounds. It significantly reduced exam anxiety—a key contributor to mental ill health. The Racially Inclusive Practice in Assessment Guidance Intervention is now being used, and changing assessment practice, at Loughborough, Leeds Trinity, University of South Wales, Manchester Metropolitan, University of Manchester, University of Winchester, London School of Economics, Wolverhampton and Birmingham City University.

It would be wrong to think that this tool alone will eliminate the race award gap fully. It is also caused by factors that exist outside of assessment practice.

However, it is clear that changing assessment goes a significant way towards making university degree results more indicative of a student’s talent, skill and ambition, and not their racial background.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The prison overcrowding crisis in the UK has shown the public what researchers and those working in criminal justice have known for years: prisons are unsafe for those serving time and working there.

With high rates of violence, drug abuse and self-harm, it is unsurprising that people in prison often suffer from poor mental and physical health. In the UK, 82% of women and 58% of men in prison report mental health issues. In turn, people are more likely to end up back in prison after release. This contradicts the whole point of prison: that punishment will deter people from crime.

One way to improve well-being in prison is through sport. As with those of us outside of prison, sport benefits body and mind, offers a distraction from harmful influences and connects us to others. Feeling that you “belong” has a huge impact on health, a mechanism commonly referred to in psychology and psychiatry as the “social cure”.

Prisons are environments where people are, by design, isolated from society and surrounded by strangers. Sports programs have the potential to improve lives by offering, among other things, positive social connection.

We have recently studied the effect of sport on improving well-being in prisons. We found that participating in an organized football program had positive, statistically significant effects on social connections for people in prison, with knock-on effects for their well-being.

The Twinning Project is a UK-founded football charity. It partners with over 70 prisons and professional football clubs to provide coaching, refereeing and stewarding qualifications to men and women in prison or serving community sentences.

In the UK, most participants complete a Football Association accredited qualification. As part of this training, they also play football and participate in other physical activity.

We surveyed 164 male participants to understand how the program influenced their well-being and sense of belonging. We measured their life satisfaction, optimism about the future and belief in themselves before and after the program. We also tracked the extent to which their psychological needs, such as feeling useful and close to other people, were satisfied.

The percentage of prisoners who thought they could achieve their goals rose from 29% before the program to 41% after. The rate of those who reported feeling satisfied with their life increased from 74% to 89%.

We also found evidence for the social cure mechanism of improving well-being. Tellingly, the share of participants who said they identified with, or felt a connection to the Twinning Project significantly increased from 76% to 86%.

Participants who identified more strongly with the program also showed increased satisfaction with critical psychological needs, which helped explain improvements in life satisfaction, personal efficacy and higher levels of optimism and happiness after the program. A stronger sense of connection was clearly linked to better well-being.

These results support our previous findings from interviews with participants completing community sentences. The interviews revealed that the camaraderie within cohorts and the mentoring from coaches helped to fill gaps in social support that many people experience in the criminal justice system. Participants told us: “My probation officer used to be on my case, she told me I should be in prison. Now she only calls me once a month because I’m doing so well since [the program started].

“It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity. I’ll carry that with me for the rest of my life … Just because I’m 32, doesn’t mean my dreams all just disappear.”

Life after prison

The vicious reoffending cycle costs the UK alone £18 billion a year (more than the government spends on the environment or housing). Improving prisoner well-being is therefore not just about making prisons safer, it has benefits for society as a whole.

While the data to assess participants’ behavior after release won’t be available for this particular project until 2026, other research has shown that vocational programs are linked to lower reoffending rates, and that sports programs are effective at reducing crime and improving well-being.

The project currently focuses on prisoners within a year of release, helping them apply new skills, with recruitment favoring those on good behavior.

Football, the most popular sport on the planet, works well because of its accessibility and minimal equipment needs. But the core idea of this program—engaging prisoners in healthy, educational activities together that develop soft skills and boost confidence—can be applied to any organized sport. There are trials in the UK and US involving rugby and basketball.

While sport alone cannot address the prison overcrowding crisis, programs that provide a sense of belonging and purpose are crucial to improving the situation. The social benefits of these activities should be a key consideration when designing content for people in prison.

Ultimately, prisons should be places where people can participate in meaningful activities, fostering growth and rehabilitation rather than simply serving as places of confinement.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.