I've always found that the big problem with insisting on go-big-or-go-home approaches to problems is that the odds are very good that you wind up landing on go home.
It might just be me - and I'm typing this while blearly-eyed tired - but it seems like insisting that systemic change is the only acceptable approach is a good way to make shockingly little progress. You wind up losing those all-or-nothing bets too often.
If the company helps some people and fails as a company, I'm going to call that a victory for humanity. I understand that some might choose to avoid a potential way to improve some lives out of a fear that it could backfire in some possible futures. I don't know what to say except that I disagree with that weighting of probabilities.
The question is what happens when we try to radically reduce the number of people we send to prison. Is there still space for Promise to make the new justice system more efficient? Do they pivot? Do they scale down? Do they disband entirely?
Or do they end up opposing efforts that would solve the root problem?
I'm sure they have noble intentions. But a lot of these problems are not things that you can make money by fixing. They require laws and policy changes. Not band-aids on top of an inherently broken system from companies that are unaccountable to the citizens they're ostensibly helping.
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/04/...