Shawn Carter aka Jay-Z has announced that his company Roc Nation will be investing an anti-incarceration program called Promise. Promise is an app-based program with new technology that will provide a community supervision service that aims to reduce the U.S. prison populations. The program is available today, by creators Phaedra Lamkins and Diana Frappier.
According to its press release, the Promise app is designed to help government agencies “support those who would otherwise be in custody” or are on probation or parole, the app will provide an “intelligent calendar” that allows users to keep track of court appearances, drug testing, and other important dates.
The Promise App will also offer a “comprehensive intake procedure” through a number of services. One service that the app will provide is helping clients with financial assistance with bail costs. A major contributing factor to overcrowded prisons throughout the U.S. comes from individuals not being able to afford bail.
“We are increasingly alarmed by the injustice in our criminal justice system,” Shawn ‘JAY-Z’ Carter said in a statement. “Money, time and lives are wasted with the current policies. It’s time for an innovative and progressive technology that offers sustainable solutions to tough problems. Promise’s team, led by Phaedra, is building an app that can help provide ‘liberty and justice for all’ to millions.”
In recent years, Jay-Z has donated a lot of time and resources to address the criminal justice system; he recently produced a docu-series based on the lives of Trayvon Martin and Kalief Browder and penned an op-ed for Time speaking out on the “exploitative bail industry.”
