Three takeaways from Meek Mill’s probation reform win

On June 11, with little fanfare, new probation reforms took effect in Pennsylvania.

The legislation, called Act 44, gives well-performing offenders the chance to end their probation early, discourages confinement for minor violations like missing a probation meeting, requires that judges tailor probation conditions to each defendant’s circumstances, and prevents those in extreme poverty from having their probation extended, even if they cannot pay for court-ordered costs and fees.

These reforms will make us safer, spend less of our taxpayer dollars, and move people out of the criminal justice system and into the workforce.

It took a ton of star wattage, news conferences, and photo ops — thanks in large part to rapper Meek Mill and Fanatics CEO Michael Rubin — to get this bill passed last December. Old-fashioned politicking was also essential: Republican State Sen. Lisa Baker and Democratic State Rep. Jordan A. Harris led the effort to get the reforms passed in their respective chambers.

In an era of gaping political divides, we should all take a moment to marvel that this reform was passed by bipartisan supermajorities in both chambers: 48-2 in the Senate and 178-25 in the House.

Act 44 is a big win for Pennsylvania politicians on the left and the right, as well as Gov. Josh Shapiro, who signed it into law. Unlike so-called criminal justice reform from Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, who seems to be encouraging Philadelphians to ignore the law if they don’t like it, Act 44 holds Pennsylvanians accountable, while also helping them rebuild their lives.

It’s a remarkable bipartisan achievement in a country most people think is hopelessly divided. Here are three important lessons from the success of these probation reforms that can help us continue to overcome the political divide.

Mill spent eight months in jail as a teenager. Over the next decade, he was sentenced to prison three more times — not for a crime, but for technical violations of his probation. Former Gov. Tom Wolf granted Mill a pardon in 2023, but few in Pennsylvania caught in the probation-violation-to-jail loop get such clemency. Mill’s story spoke to the experience of thousands of Pennsylvanians, especially people of color.

It helps to have a celebrity out there making the moral case for why a policy should change (huge hat tip to Jay-Z for jumping in on school choice vouchers). But Mill’s experience spoke to something the data backed up. Pennsylvania’s probation system was not just wasting resources, it was wasting people’s lives. It was not benefiting victims, nor did it improve public safety.

Probation needed to have clear standards and incentivize good behavior, not hold people to rigid standards that catch them up in technical violations ad infinitum. This is something most Americans can agree upon. It’s what brought politicians on both sides together.

Pennsylvania is a state of about 13 million people, the majority of whom are not on any form of probation. Still, it is vital to recognize just how bad the supervised release system is in our state.

According to the American Civil Liberties Union, Pennsylvania has a higher incarceration rate than any other state in the Northeast, and the second-highest percentage nationwide of citizens on some form of probation or parole.

That’s because we had a wonky system. Pennsylvania is one of the few states where a person can be convicted of a crime, get locked up, be released on parole, and then serve more time on probation, regardless of the threat they pose to public safety or any actions they took to rebuild their lives. This led to people spending years in jail and decades on probation, not because of the crime they were convicted for, but because of technical violations.

And this has not made us safer. In its public safety ratings, U.S. News and World Report ranks Pennsylvania 17th for violent crime and 11th for property crime.

Most people consider criminal justice reform a progressive or left-wing issue. But in my work in state and national politics, I have seen how right-wing conservatives have been leading on this issue for almost 20 years.

For many conservatives, the idea of redemption and restoration is often part of their religious identity. And, of course, spending fewer taxpayer dollars with good outcomes like increased public safety is always popular on the right.

Almost 20 years ago, Texas attorney Marc Levin sparked the right’s fervor for criminal justice reform by appealing to morally and fiscally conservative values. In 2005, the free market-oriented Texas Public Policy Foundation argued that the old “lock ‘em up and throw away the keys” mentality was trapping nonviolent offenders in a bad system that was costing a fortune.

Conservative leadership on criminal justice reform has continued. In 2019, former Obama administration “green jobs tsar” Van Jones admitted during a panel discussion at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, “The conservative movement in this country, unfortunately from my point of view, is now the leader on this issue of [criminal justice] reform.”

Most people, regardless of their stated political leanings, can get behind policies that effectively use taxpayer dollars to improve public safety and help people rebuild their lives.

This moment requires that we move away from our narrow view of politics as usual and embrace good ideas that benefit us all.