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Jay-Z is back in the news, but this time for his advocacy for criminal justice reform and the struggle for equity amongst marginalized groups.
A branch of Roc Nation called Team Roc has played a major part in helping raise $1 million for and Innocence Project out in Wyandotte County, Kansas. The organization is a key player in the investigations of individuals who have been wrongly convicted. According to the Kansas City Star, the Innocence Project is currently working on 40 cases.
Lamonte McIntyre, who also received help from the organization because of a wrongful conviction, spent 23 years in prison for a couple of murders he had nothing to do with. Tricia Rojo Bushnell, the executive director of the Midwest Innocence Project was quoted saying “It’s a huge investment. The ability to look at these cases… is really going to continue to shine a light on what we need to do to actually provide a just criminal legal system in Wyandotte County.”
It is also reported that Team Roc purchased an ad in The Washington Post to highlight alleged corruption in the Kansas City justice system. The advertisement read, “The police and eyewitness reports of criminal behavior perpetrated by members of the Kansas City, Kansas police department, over the past several decades, are staggering. They detail graphic accounts of rape, murder, sex trafficking and corruption so rampant and so blatant, it would be shocking if even a single allegation were true.”
