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Meek Mill

Meek Mill's legal battles show unjust probation system must change

Unlike Meek Mill, most Americans don't have a network of celebrities and lawyers. We can help them by ending the probation trap across the country.

Laura Arnold, Van Jones and Michael Rubin
Opinion contributors

The Pennsylvania Superior Court just took a significant step in ending a prolonged injustice by finally overturning the 2008 gun and drug charges against hip-hop artist Meek Mill and granting a new trial.

Nearly all of Mill’s adult life has been consumed by an encounter he had with a police officer when he was 19 years old. Shortly after that, he became one of the 4.5 million Americans living under community supervision. And more than 10 years later, Mill was still on probation.

In the time since his initial arrest and sentence, while under onerous and unreasonable supervision, Mill has built a successful music career and become a pillar of his community. His probation was supposed to function as an alternative to incarceration. It didn’t work out that way.

Probation made jail time more likely

Since his original jail term ended, Mill has been incarcerated for 10 more months and on house arrest for 90 days.Traveling without permission (he was performing in a concert), being involved in an altercation at an airport or even popping a wheelie on a motorbike have all worked to trigger the criminal justice system like some hunter’s trap, yanking Mill back into the courtroom and, at times, behind bars.

Even something as innocuous as visiting his son could trigger repercussions if he didn’t get approval from the court. His son lives in New Jersey, and crossing state lines (in other words, driving across the bridge from Philadelphia to New Jersey for 15 minutes) could violate his probation. We call these “technical violations” of probation. They’re not new crimes. They’re just violations of a rule. But in Pennsylvania, as is true of many states, the consequence can be the same — prison.

Rapper Meek Mill in New York on July 23, 2019.

The circumstances around Mill’s seemingly endless legal ordeal may feel like a worst case scenario. After all, how often do Americans actually face incarceration over technical violations — over breaking the administrative rules of their probation?

The answer is a strikingly high number of times.

Nearly half of prison admissions in America are due to supervision failures, according to a new study by The Council of State Governments Justice Center. And in 20 states — including Pennsylvania — it’s more than half. In Utah, for example, 79% of prison admissions are the result of supervision failures; in Missouri, 77%. What's more, a quarter of all state prison admissions stem from mere technical violations of supervision. The research shows that people routinely go to prison for breaking even the most innocuous regulations, such as missing appointments with a parole officer. And the cost of this hair-trigger system that punishes people for small slips? State taxpayers pay $2.8 billion each year.

Meek Mill's case shows a broken system

These admissions are a symptom of a broken supervision system. Probation is promoted as a path out of the criminal justice system — the promise that proper rules and a tight leash can help people stay on the straight and narrow. That’s not how things work.

In reality, our system keeps the 1 in 55 Americans living under probation entangled with police, courts and corrections institutions. This undermines their ability to work, earn an education and live a healthy, productive life. Instead of a solution to mass incarceration, probation acts as a key contributor.

We are finally waking up to the fact that we’ve designed our system to do the exact opposite of what we claim we want it to.

Probation reform commentary:As candidates search for criminal justice talking points, parole and probation reform should top the list

The status quo for community supervision is expensive and ineffective — and things are getting worse. The number of people on probation and parole supervision in the United States has tripled in the past three decades. It is time to refocus supervision on public safety and civic stability rather than aimless and excessive punishment.

This means sentencing fewer people to probation; implementing alternatives to supervision; capping the length of supervision terms; incentivizing compliance and rewarding behavior change; eliminating or capping incarceration for technical violations that do not involve a new crime; limiting the number and scope of supervision conditions; focusing resources on those with higher risk and needs; and eliminating financial obligations such as supervision fees that perpetuate poverty and create a barrier to success.

In Mill’s home state of Pennsylvania, the legislature is already debating key reforms. House bill 1555 will cap the length of probationary periods like the majority of states currently do, and Senate bill 14 will incentivize compliance and success while on supervision, so that people don’t have to live under years of judicial scrutiny, and also offer credits for people on probation seeking rehabilitative programs and pursuing their education.

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Unlike Meek Mill, most Americans don’t have a network of supportive celebrities and substantial funds to take on a legal fight against our unnecessarily burdensome system of probation. That’s why it is critical that advocates unite to push for reforms in states across the country. It is time we stop laying traps and start providing the support people need to succeed and thrive. 

Michael Rubin, Philadelphia 76ers partner, and Laura Arnold, a philanthropist, are founding partners of the REFORM Alliance, along with Meek Mill, Shawn “JAY-Z” Carter, Robert Kraft, Robert Smith, Daniel Loeb, Clara Wu Tsai and Michael Novogratz. Van Jones is the CEO of the organization. Follow them on Twitter: @MichaelGRubin and @VanJones68

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