You are now able to "share the cost of a lockdown".  Example:

You are in Chicago, and you want to start jailing but are running low on credits.  Toss a chunk of the cost of the lockdown into the community CH pot, and when others contribute to it and it hits 1 credit - the jail launches and the people who chipped in get notified of the lockdown being spawned.  This enables you to financially share the lockdown with a few other people.

A few tidbits:  This is a buyer beware feature.  If you fly, if you die, if you log off, if you go inactive - Once you start or contribute towards the shared jail funding for a particular city - the process will continue with or without you.

Traditionally, there are certain benefits to launching your own 1 credit lockdown; jail sorting and a Get Out Of Jail Free Card.  None of these will be given when its a shared lockdown, these are only received when you alone purchase the 1 credit lockdown.

This feature will only be available on the jail page itself.  The credit spend page will still have the same full credit lockdown option for every city, and a quantity estimate, unlike this new feature.  Because you do not see the count of members at the time on the jail page, a safeguard is put in place that if the jail will not have enough people to justify launching, it will prevent the launch and warn you to wait a little bit.

Would it be possible for personals to be sent out to those who contributed once the balance reaches one and the jail is about to be tossed?

This worked in our testing, do you not get a toast when it happens?

the jail launches and the people who chipped in get notified of the lockdown being spawned.

^--- in the original thread :)

Traditionally, there are certain benefits to launching your own 1 credit lockdown; jail sorting and a Get Out Of Jail Free Card.  None of these will be given when its a shared lockdown, these are only received when you alone purchase the 1 credit lockdown.

This is no longer true. If you pay a full credit via the shared lockdown system you get all the same benefits. The one small gotcha is that if someone contibutes, say 0.25 just before you click, the game will only charge you 0.75 and you will not get the benefits. (So be quick.)