There is such a thing as for profit for good. Perhaps they believe they can be both better and cheaper than prisons at the same time. That allows them to provide a compelling pitch to governments and convince them to direct funds to Promise instead of prisons. The government wins because it's cheaper, their users win because they are not incarcerated, and they win because they have cash flow. These types of businesses are not impossible to create.
Their association with Y Combinator doesn't help with that impression. How many other venture funded start ups exist to provide a societal benefit while making only a modest return? Isn't the goal a big exit?
They might not be venture funded yet, but they aren't at Y Combinator for the coffee, right? I know this sounds super cynical, so please tell me why I'm wrong. Why is this a good thing?
Who says anything about a modest return? How much does the U.S. spend on prisons? How much does the world spend on prisons? Say they operate at a 30% discount, how much revenue is that? Off the top of my head, a lot.
>These types of businesses are not impossible to create.
This is amazingly uninformed. Let’s stop pretending private businesses were born yesterday and just consult history. Privatization of human rights is despicable and this is not a lesson that needs to be learned again. Do you know why we never had private prisons before? They incentivize corruption of the most vulnerable fabric of our society. No excuse.
I agree that for-profit prisons are not good for society. But does this one (granted, massive) mistake mean that we can no longer try to innovate in this space? Does it mean that the only model is publicly funded rehabilitation? That's obviously not worked either.
Exactly. I think there's a lot of things to consider around it all, for-profit prisons have a LOT of problems. But if we found that microwaving food for prisoners saved a lot of time cooking and thus also the amount of time we had to pay for people to cook for prisons that would be a good thing...at least it would be if that money gets funneled back to the point that a taxpayer is paying less. As it is I assume it just goes into the pocket of whoever runs the for-profit prison.
A profit motive can lead to perverse and unforeseen incentives, even despite the best intentions of the founders, who someday will not be running the company.
The private prison industry routinely lobbies for higher fines & longer sentences because it is to their benefit to have more people go to prison. Promise appears to have a similar incentive.
This aims to be much closer: http://benefitcorp.net/faq. Companies with the ability to operate for-profit, but without the obligation for maximizing shareholder profit.
That said, I'm hoping they can. I too am skeptical that a for-profit model can work here, but as long as the incentives are appropriately aligned (they profit when incarceration rates drop and recidivism rates decline), there's a possibility it can work.
Consider a business model based on per day an individual did not recidivate, pro-rated by a prediction model for initial likelihood of recidivism, and severity of crime.
This would perhaps ascribe a number for level of difficulty, and an initial estimate for how hard the case is.
Keep in mind that a convicted offender on the streets may suffer from a potential for revenge and retaliation, and thus is possibly safer in jail, however horrible jail may be. This would augment a recidivism predictor further, if you cannot isolate them from their victims, should victims be bitter about the perception of your service lacking punitive action.
Well, it wouldn't be recidivism, but rather if the accused committed another crime prior to their trial date. Or, if they missed their trial date.
It's easy to keep getting confused around if we're dealing with accused criminals or convicted felons, as both are in jail. Sounds like Promise is focusing on the accused.
Want to sell bonds that mature when the group of monitored individuals is NOT incarcerated? I’m asking about the payment logistics... it’s a boring but important($$$) part.
The read I have is that they are aiming downstream of the detention decision, providing services related to probation and parole.
I wouldn't be real surprised if their initial targets are places that have large, established probation systems, offering the tech as an aid to government employed probation officers. Easier than taking on legal responsibility for the probationers.
I have a hard time seeing how you can align the incentives of a business like this with greater societal interests.