‘Deep Dive with Laura Arnold’ Podcast Explores Probation and Parole with Hip-Hop Artist Meek Mill

Meek Mill, chart-topping hip-hop artist and co-founder of the REFORM Alliance, sits down with Arnold Ventures Co-Chair Laura Arnold to discuss the broken probation and parole system in the latest episode of the Arnold Ventures podcast ​“Deep Dive with Laura Arnold.”

Mill began his fight for probation and parole reform after receiving a multi-year prison sentence for minor probation violations, including popping a wheelie on his dirt bike. He is one of more than 350,000 people sent to prison each year for probation and parole failures, which can include infractions as minor as improper paperwork or missing a curfew. Arnold and Mill discuss his experiences of being trapped inside a broken system that is laser-focused on punishment instead of what it is intended to do: help people stay out of prison.

“Our community supervision system creates and perpetuates a destructive cycle for the millions of people whose lives are subject to it,” Arnold says. ​“The way our system is set up, we’re more likely to spend our resources sending someone to prison for a traffic violation than helping someone who is struggling to make their life better. It doesn’t have to be this way. We have the power to shift our priorities and resources to make probation and parole fundamentally fairer and more effective.”

In each ​“Deep Dive with Laura Arnold” episode, Arnold will talk to people at the center of the fight for policy change, disentangle complex issues, and remind us that entrenched interests make reform difficult, but not impossible.

New episodes will feature a range of topics, including accountability in higher education.

How to listen

Listen to the podcast here, on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, Stitcher or your favorite podcast app.

About the host

Laura Arnold is the Co-Founder and Co-Chair of Arnold Ventures, founded in 2010, and an attorney and former oil company executive. Read more about her here.

About the podcast

Sky-high drug prices. Mass incarceration. Predatory lending. These are the surface-level symptoms of broken systems. To find answers, we must peel back the layers and look deeper. Arnold Ventures Co-Chair Laura Arnold shares the mike with leading data-driven experts in ​“Deep Dive with Laura Arnold,” a new podcast by the Arnold Ventures philanthropy that explores market failures in health care, criminal justice, education, and public finance – and how to fix them.