-Thank you for coming back
to the show.
And thank you for --
-Yeah.
-He was nervous by the way,
to come back.
After last time.
-Well, yeah. Exactly.
I mean, I don't know how
to get into the whole thing.
Just for anyone
who doesn't know,
but I'm sure everyone
already knows
but you got arrested
when you were 19.
-Yeah. 19 years old.
I caught a case
in Philadelphia, actually.
I don't know if everybody
been to Philadelphia.
But it's an environment where,
you know, we got pockets
where, like, there's
ruthless environments,
neighborhoods where, like,
drug infested neighborhoods,
and you know,
being in a certain area,
I caught a case at 19 years old,
which I was falsely accused of
a bunch of things, and I was put
on probation for 10 years.
And I'm 31 years old now,
and I'm still on probation,
basically.
-10 years?
-Yeah, it extended.
Like, if anything happened --
like, you don't have to commit
crime, but if anything
happens along the way,
they can just add years
and years and years.
So, it actually got extended
to 16 years now.
So I get off probation
in 2023.
So, if I was to loiter,
or get a traffic ticket,
I could go to jail for years.
-I just don't --
It's just crazy to me.
This seems wrong.
Does the judge
have it out for you,
or what is the deal?
-Uh, really, like, you know,
it's just that the way
these statutes are set up,
like, if you had
an 18-year-old kid,
he smoked marijuana.
He got locked up
for smoking marijuana,
and got seven years
of probation,
and then seven years later,
he had an opioid addiction,
or got addicted to Percocets,
the first time he takes
Percocets,
he would go to jail for what?
Five years in prison.
You know what I'm saying?
Not even committing --
-You did get addicted, right?
-Yeah, I was addicted to opioids
probably for about two,
three years of my life.
I started taking Percocet,
and any time I would
go to see my probation officer,
you have a dirty urine,
you go to jail.
We next door to
Montgomery County.
I'm from the city,
but Montgomery County,
you got, like, a group of, like,
Caucasian kids.
They're like -- there's a lot
of people addicted to opioids.
They go to treatment.
We go straight to jail.
You know what I'm saying?
So like, the laws are like,
kind of different
in different counties.
You know, like,
people like myself,
we actually get the bad end
of the stick.
Not saying that we shouldn't be
punished for criminal activity
or you should not go to jail
if you commit crime,
but, uh, probation was designed
for one to help
better themselves,
and I've been on probation
for what...?
-Your entire adult life.
-Really?
-Yes.
-Well, now,
how did you guys meet?
What's the story here?
You just became friends?
-You know, we met
at the All-Star game.
-Yeah, New York.
-Yeah.
Probably four or five years ago.
And in a lot of ways,
Meek reminded me of myself
because he kept asking me
business questions like crazy.
-Want to know the real deal?
I was like --
He was like, "Who you?"
I was like, "Who you?"
He was like --
[ Laughter ]
-That is true. That is true.
-One of the co-owners
of the Sixers.
I'm like, "Man, how do you
get that much money?"
[ Laughter ]
-He started asking questions
like crazy, and I loved it,
cause that's the way
I've learned and grown,
and what's crazy
is I think back, you know,
this -- I guess this is
four or five years ago.
In the last year,
you were always around.
Like you were, you know,
at my house all the time,
at the Sixers games
all the time.
I'd be like,
"Meek, what's up, bro?
Like, get a job.
Like, what are you doing?
Like, go out and perform."
-Really.
-"Like,
I don't understand this."
He's like, "Michael,
I can't leave Philadelphia."
I'm like,
"Well, how do you work?"
He's like, "I'm not allowed
to leave Philadelphia."
And that was, like,
before any of this happened
with him actually
being sentenced to prison.
-What is the new foundation,
this new organization?
-It's a new organization.
Me, Michael Rubin, Robert Kraft,
and a few others,
we've been working on it
for the last few months.
Since I've been --
Since I've been in prison,
we probably
started working on it.
And, you know,
the main goal is --
What we got?
How many people in prison?
-6.7 million people in the
criminal justice system today,
in the U.S., five times the rate
of the rest of the world.
-Five times the rate?
-Five times the rate.
It makes no sense.
There's no logic.
It's just a system
that was built decades ago
that makes no sense,
and it needs aggressive people
to say, "This is broken.
We need to fix it."
Our mission
is gonna be very simple,
which is, how do we get
a minimum of a million people
out of the criminal-justice
system in the next five years,
and how do we, over the next,
you know, kind of long term --
how do we cut
the population in half?
And I think --
You know, Meek --
what I'm so proud about Meek,
this is a guy who sat in prison,
and every day
we talked on the phone,
it was, you know, "I'm lucky.
Like, I'm fortunate
to have everyone helping me.
How do we help others?"
You know?
"Maybe this happened
for a reason.
We've got to change the country
and help these other
millions of people
that are stuck
in the system unfairly."
-Wow. Do you feel
like you're really lucky?
-Uh, yeah, I would say lucky
where I come from.
[ Laughter ]
Me and Tariq,
we all come from the same area.
I think them guys over there
are lucky.
I come from a neighborhood
where, you know,
young black males lose their
life on a daily basis.
Families lose their lives or are
broken up because of the system.
Mothers and fathers,
their kids raised
around addicts
and stuff like that.
So, you know,
we made it through all of that.
And, you know, just to have
the support of the people.
Like, when I was in jail,
I watched the news,
and seeing people
rallying around
and supporting my incarceration.
I've been going
to jail for like --
If I get a traffic ticket --
I left this show,
popped a wheelie,
and I was in jail since.
You know what I'm saying?
I went to jail,
did six months in jail.
You know what I'm saying?
So to have
some type of support --
where I come from, we don't
really have a lot of support,
so, you know, I feel lucky.
And I feel lucky to be able
to shed light
on a show like this to people
that's trapped behind walls
that would never get a chance
to shed light on that situation.
We got innocent people.
You got people in jail from old
statutes that make no sense,
that they're just
caught up in the system.
So, you know, I feel lucky.
-Do you -- Do people watch
"The Tonight Show"?
-Yeah. Of course.
Lockdown at 9:00, you know?
TV is on.
You know.
-Meek is fighting for you guys.
-For sure.
That's what they know.
[ Cheers and applause ]
-Go to meekmill.com
and learn more about
what these guys are doing.
You guys are great.
Meek Mill,
Michael Rubin, everybody.
