Improving the eating habits of would-be criminals could cut rates of crime and antisocial behaviour by as much as a third, scientists have suggested.

Simple measures to make sure that prisoners, including murderers, get a recommended daily dose of vitamins and minerals could make them less impulsive, reducing violence both inside prison and in the wider community, according to researchers at the University of Oxford.

Young male inmates in England and Scotland are to be given vitamin supplements as part of the first large study to determine if better nutrition can improve the health of their brains and help them to keep violent urges at bay. The £1.4 million project, funded by the Wellcome Trust, follows controlled studies in Britain and Denmark where nutrition supplements reduced assaults, thefts and other offences among inmates in young offender institutions.

The three-year study will begin in May, involving an estimated 1,000 inmates at young offender institutions at Hindley in Greater Manchester, Lancaster Farms in Lancashire and Polmont in Falkirk, Central Scotland. It will involve serious offenders, including killers, aged between 16 and 21.

Alongside their normal prison diet some inmates will be given placebo while others will receive the full recommended daily intake of more than 30 vitamins and minerals, plus a dose of omega-3 fatty acids, which earlier studies have claimed can help to reduce aggression and mood swings. Experts will then monitor whether those receiving the supplements experience reduced levels of violence, drug-taking and self-harm, taking into account all other relevant factors.

John Stein, a neurophysiologist from the University of Oxford who is leading the study, said that if the trial was successful, he hoped to extend it to target crime and antisocial behaviour outside jail, such as among people with ASBOs. Omega-3 acids, along with zinc, iron and A, B and D vitamins, play a crucial role in brain chemistry, leading to a direct link between poor diet and increased crime, he believes. He said that nutrition was not the only key cause of crime but society may have seriously underestimated its importance as a trigger of impulsive and violent behaviour.

Professor Stein, the brother of Rick Stein, the celebrity chef, added: “We see on TV every day somebody who has been stabbed or shot. That is often a consequence of people not being able to control their anger, and being unable to focus their attention on the consequences of their actions. I think this can be caused by a slight impairment of the prefrontal cortex — the part of the brain that is most sensitive to lack of key nutrients.”

A pilot project ten years ago found that prisoners who took vitamin pills and other supplements committed a quarter fewer disciplinary offences and 37 per cent fewer violent offences.

Bernard Gesch, honorary director of the charity Natural Justice, who will also lead the project, said that the research could prove to be “an absolutely seminal study”. He added: “The law tends to assume that criminal behaviour is entirely a matter of free will. I wonder if that is entirely true.”

David Hanson, the Prisons Minister, said that he welcomed the study. “I hope that it will shed further light on the possible links between nutrition and behaviour.”

Frances Crook, director of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said: “You cannot give young people a pill and then send them back to their cell where they sit on a bed opposite the toilet and just expect them to behave. A pill is not going to solve the problem of poor behaviour.”

Harry Fletcher, of the National Association of Probation Officers, said: “I would rather the money was spent on staff, resettlement and anger management courses than on medicines and pills.”

Times Recommends

• Alex Rider exclusive: Incident in Nice
• Green & confused: do energy-saving bulbs work?
• Let’s skip lunch, say the hungry generation