There will be a Meek Mill Social Reform Panel with Philadelphia social leaders and university students
“Meek Mill is one of the millions of nonviolent offenders caught in a long and alternating cycle of incarceration and surveillance.”
REFORM: BRINGING INJUSTICE TO LIGHT, a conversation discussing Meek Mill's current legal troubles and the criminal justice system, will take place on March 13th at 4 p.m., in a city-wide panel at the University of Pennsylvania's Irvine auditorium.
Mill is serving a two-to-four-year prison sentence for violating his probation. For nearly a decade, Mill had been on probation in his 2009 drug and gun case, according to the Associated Press.
According to Billboard, student organizations from the University of Pennsylvania, Temple University and Drexel University will help host the discussion. This panel will also include guest speakers such as Reverend Al Sharpton, Bryan Stevenson, J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League member Angelo Pinto, civil rights attorney David Rudofsky, and more.
Meek Mill's mother Kathy Williams and attorney Joe Tacopina are also expected to attend the discussion to update on the rapper's case.
Temple's TABJ is one of the student organizations helping host this discussion. Hadiyah Weaver, TABJ's treasurer, encourages all Temple students to attend the event on March 13th.
"Temple students are visitors of the North Philadelphia community. This is the community that Meek is from, and he is just one of the several million affected by the injustice within the crime system, and if we truly want to see this country go forward from the past then we as a nation have to be informed of that history. This discussion was made to do just that. Temple is known to be a generally liberal university and Temple students should attend to become a little more informed of the change we claim we want to see."
According to Reform Philly, "The case of Robert Williams, aka Meek Mill, is emblematic to the systematic problems of our criminal justice system, specifically with regard to what many are calling the "probation trap" in Philadelphia. Meek Mill was arrested at 19-years-old by Narcotics Field Unit police officers who are now currently under investigation for crimes conducted by fellow officers who are indicted for assault, robbery, kidnapping and false arrests to extort more than $500,000 in cash, drugs, watches and clothing from individuals targeted as drug dealers."
Recently in Mill's legal battle, police officer Reginald Graham, who arrested and aided in Mill's 2008 conviction, is suspected of corruption in this document released by the Philadelphia Inquirer. This document lists the names of 29 current and former officers whom prosecutors have kept off the witness stand over allegations of misconduct.
Despite all these findings, Reform Philly asks one simple question.
Why is Meek Mill still in prison?
Read more about Reform Philly's event here and details on the discussion can be found on Facebook.