Jay-Z's Roc Nation announced on March 19 they will be providing financial backing for a new technology venture that aims to work towards a comprehensive solution to reducing incarceration rates.
According to Promise's website, their service "provides a cost-effective, more humane alternative to incarceration by extending the capabilities of community supervision, improving long-term outcomes for individuals …reducing recidivism and forging safer communities."
The Promise app seeks to accomplish this by building both a support system for individuals who are going through the court process, as well as a monitoring and community oversight platform for law enforcement agencies. Each user who has been charged or convicted will have a custom plan built for them and laid out step-by-step in the Promise smartphone app, which could help reduce legal missteps like missing deadlines to submit paperwork or failing to appear at court-ordered meetings, all of which could lead to potentially unnecessary incarceration for people who would otherwise be allowed to remain free while serving probation.
"We are increasingly alarmed by the injustice in our criminal justice system," Jay-Z said in his press statement announcing Roc Nation's investment, " It's time for an innovative and progressive technology that offers sustainable solutions to tough problems. Promise’s team ... is building an app that can help provide 'liberty and justice for all' to millions."
Roc Nation's financial interest in Promise is just the latest in Jay-Z's investments into progressive endeavors, as earlier this week it was also announced that Hov plans to partner with Diddy to develop an app that helps generate awareness for local black-owned businesses to help reinvest wealth into the black community.
"My thing is most importantly to change the narrative of the black race. I can't relate to anything that isn't about that," said Diddy of the still-unnamed project. "I don't believe in passiveness. …I feel like we've done a lot of marching. It's time to start charging."
