The entry in the Pennsylvania database is stark and direct. Inmate number: ND8400. Name: Robert Rihmeek Williams. Age: 30. Height: 6ft 2in. Location: State Correctional Institution Chester.
Behind those blunt words lies a story that has exposed a running sore within the US criminal justice system. The incarceration of Williams for minor probation violations related to a crime he committed as a teenager more than a decade ago has brought some of the biggest names in music and sport rallying to his cause, spawned a new hashtag and drawn hundreds of people to the steps of Philadelphia’s City Hall to protest.
From Jay-Z to Colin Kaepernick, influential supporters have spoken out against the perceived mistreatment of Williams and what it tells us about the experiences of a generation of African Americans. The outpouring has lifted the lid on a largely overlooked iniquity, in much the same way as the unmasking of Harvey Weinstein has laid bare the sexual misconduct of powerful men.
Despite his branding as prisoner number ND8400, Williams is no ordinary inmate. When he is allowed out of his cell and on stage, he metamorphoses as Meek Mill, the Billboard chart-topping hip hop artist managed by Jay-Z’s Roc Nation with major albums including Dreams Worth More Than Money and the current release Wins & Losses to his name.
His sentencing earlier this month to two to four years in state prison for seemingly minor breaches of his probation terms has unleashed an outcry from influential voices. Jay-Z blasted what he described as the entrapment and harassment of black people, accusing the Philadelphia courts of stalking Williams and using the slightest violation to lock him back inside.
The former 49ers quarterback Kaepernick has metaphorically got back down on one knee to champion the defendant as a victim of systemic
oppression. “America professes to be the land of the free, yet it has the world’s largest prison population – disproportionately America’s prisons are filled with Black bodies,” he said.
Such high-profile focus on the plight of Mill has in turn cast light on thousands of other young black people whose stories typically have no hope of being aired. In Philadelphia alone, there are 45,000 men and women who have served their time but routinely remain caught in the grip of the penal system through probation that stretches on for years, often sending them back to prison for slip-ups that can be as insignificant as turning up late for an appointment with a parole officer.