Criminon worse than nothing!

I don't usually post in this manner, but thought I'd make an exception in this case. Many apologists and supporters of the Church of Scientology point to its drug and crime programs as evidence of the good that the Church does (confusingly, as a way of counterbalancing the bad that the Church does). Second Chance, offering Criminon in New Mexico, claims a 90% success rate, but appears to have a lower success rate than people not participating in the program.

The document mentioned can be found here.

The overall point of this is that many of the services that the Church of Scientology try to provide are services with measurable performance - Narconon, Crimonon, Scholastic Tech, the Purification Rundown. Because Scientology is always marketed as new and revolutionary (Dianetics is still "Modern Science" despite being over fifty years old. And not science.) they'll often get away with suggesting that the reason they don't have any research into efficacy is because they've not had the chance to do any yet. Leaving aside the fact that they are marketing techniques before establishing whether or not they work, they have had plenty of time, money and resources to put their theories to the test. When research has been carried out, the results have been hidden away or misrepresented.

Scientologists often claim that their religion is being victimised, that they should be free to believe in what they want. I agree that they should be free to. Emphasis on free. I also believe that where their organisation makes realworld, falsifiable claims, then those claims should be put to the test, and put to the test in an open and honest manner. If seeking out proof is unpalatable to Scientologists, then they ought only be offering their unproven services to other Scientologists, not trying to peddle it to all us spiritually-stunted, evidence-based fools in the Wog world.