Sorry, this is just a general comment. And it is only an opinion. I don‘t like the idea of profit-orientated prisons. The aim of a reform might be „good prisons“, „good treatment“, but that‘s not where the money is/get‘s generated? Low reoffending rates, espacially for crimes like murder, sexual assault, etc. are „producing“ the profit. I am afraid, people will find cheaper (but not necessarily better ways) to make the profit. For example: if some of my clients ever stands in court again: I will pay them a really good lawyer: I loose money, if they get convicted… / I will make a really good group-therapy, on how not to get caught and how to act with the police. I‘d have an incentive to work (bribe) the police/ the jury … I‘d have an incentive to kill my high-risk-people shortly after releasing them, espacially, if their situation worsens… („incentive“ might easily mean millions).
I‘m sure one could get past some of those objections… but not past all of them.
I‘d rather like a public prison system, good statistics and a competition for being a good prison, without going to those extremes. That would mean less competition, sure.
Still, thx for your post, I am extremely interested to more comments and your replies.
They did not have a placebo-receiving control group. For example some kind of unstructured talking-group etc. Ideally an intervention known as „useless“ but sounding plausible. So we do not know, which effects are due to regression to the middle, social desirable answers etc. This is basically enough to make their research rather useless. And proper control groups are common for quiete a while.
No „real“ evaluation of the results. Only depending on what their patients said, but not checking, if this is correct (children going to school more often…). Not even for a subgroup.
They had the impression, that patients answered in a social desirable way—and adressed that problem completely inadequate. Arguing social desirable answers would happen only at the end of the treatment, but not near the end of the treatment. ?! So they simply took near-end numbers for granted. ?!
If their depression treatment is as good as they claim, then it is magnitudes better, than ALL common treatments in high-income countries. And much cheaper. And faster. And with less specialized instuctors… ?! And did they invent something new? Nope. They took an already existing treatment—and now it works SO much better? This seems implausible to me.
As far as I know SoGive is reviewing strongminds research. They should be able to back (or reject) my comments here.