--- title: Meek Mill, Harvey Weinstein and the Criminal Justice System description: The writer and lawyer looks at the differences in prosecuting different types of crime — and how the race of a defendant may come into play canonical: https://time.com/5033582/meek-mill-harvey-weinstein/ author: Jill Filipovic article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-11-21T21:01:36.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T18:19:42.312Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Meek Mill Is In Jail for a Wheelie While Harvey Weinstein Roams Free og:description: 'The wealthy and powerful in America — i.e. the overwhelmingly white and male — are playing a different game' og:url: https://time.com/5033582/meek-mill-harvey-weinstein/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb2337c40d1e9498a/6988e4d8ab6d772ec36b085a/gettyimages-820507348.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3000 og:image:height: 1688 og:image:alt: Meek Mill "Wins & Losses" Album Release Party og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Meek Mill Is In Jail for a Wheelie While Harvey Weinstein Roams Free twitter:description: 'The wealthy and powerful in America — i.e. the overwhelmingly white and male — are playing a different game' twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb2337c40d1e9498a/6988e4d8ab6d772ec36b085a/gettyimages-820507348.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Meek Mill Is In Jail for a Wheelie While Harvey Weinstein Roams Free > Sponsored content. 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Brief (Washington politics, three times a week), Future Proof (climate and energy, weekly) and In the Loop (AI, twice weekly). All are free at time.com/newsletters and together reach more than 1.1 million engaged readers. #### Which TIME newsletter should I subscribe to? It depends on what you follow. For a daily briefing, The Brief. For health, Health Matters. For Washington politics, D.C. Brief. For AI and technology, In the Loop. For climate and energy as a business story, Future Proof. For culture recommendations, Worth Your Time. For how TIME's journalism gets made, Inside TIME. Readers can select any combination at time.com/newsletters. #### Are TIME's newsletters free? Yes. All seven TIME newsletters are free to join at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes TIME's newsletters? TIME journalists write them. Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. by [Jill Filipovic](https://time.com/author/jill-filipovic/) ## Jill Filipovic Nov 21, 2017 9:01 PM UTC  Meek Mill in New York City on July 21, 2017. Meek Mill in New York City on July 21, 2017.Shareif Ziyadat—WireImage by [Jill Filipovic](https://time.com/author/jill-filipovic/) ## Jill Filipovic Nov 21, 2017 9:01 PM UTC The American criminal justice system is broken: just look at Meek Mill and Harvey Weinstein. This month,[ Meek Mill](http://time.com/5012864/meek-mill-prison-parole-violation/), a 30-year-old rapper, was sentenced to two to four years in prison for violating the terms of his probation — probation he’s been on since he was a teenager, all stemming from charges of gun and drug possession. What did he do wrong? He popped a wheelie on a motorcycle. In the meantime, [Harvey Weinstein](http://time.com/5032126/billionaires-kept-harvey-weinstein-powerful/), who was caught on tape confessing to sexual assault, is a free man. We are so thoroughly used to the sanctity of women’s bodies being ignored and violated — and that “we” includes women ourselves, not to mention law enforcement — that more often than not, the violation of the body has to be disturbingly egregious and violent for the incident to be taken seriously. Sexual assault is one of the most underreported crimes in the country. And even when it is reported, prosecutors may not believe they have enough evidence to prosecute; they may find the victim insufficiently sympathetic. Prosecutors aren’t necessarily bad people, but they are worried about conviction rates, and their job performance often hinges on bringing cases they can win. Winning means convincing a jury or a judge of wrongdoing — or getting an alleged criminal and his defense attorney to settle. Prosecution is much easier in drug charges brought against Meek Mill, and it’s even easier when the criminal defendant is a young black man. Juries aren’t sympathetic, and there’s no “he said, she said.” As much as we like to think justice is blind, our criminal justice system replicates the same bigotries at play everywhere else in the United States, including racism and sexism. Conviction rates for black men are higher than they are for white men. Funding for public defenders varies significantly by state, and while many of these lawyers are brilliant and dedicated public servants who do their best, they are under-funded and overworked nearly across the board. Other criminal defense lawyers border on negligent, and their clients suffer for it. Low-income and of-color defendants like a teenage Meek Mill was are at a huge disadvantage. The wealthy and powerful in America — i.e. the overwhelmingly white and male — are playing a different game. They have the resources to pay teams of lawyers, not just to defend them in court but to intimidate anyone who might challenge them, which is exactly [what Weinstein did](http://time.com/4995946/weinstein-workplace-culture/) to women who he thought might point the finger at him. Women conclude, often rightly, that reporting powerful men just isn’t worth the blowback and the cost to their careers and reputations. The [United States imprisons more people](http://motto.time.com/4948746/prison-sentence-justice-reform/) than any country in the history of the world. The prison industry is also a profitable one for many private enterprises, and politicians benefit from disenfranchised prisoners in their districts: people who can’t vote and aren’t represented in congress or by state legislators, but still count in population tallies and help to secure additional resources for the communities that imprison them. The probation system is part of this broader web of injustice. Limited probation would make sense if the purpose was to help an offender rehabilitate and make sure he’s staying out of legal trouble. But that’s not the reality. Probationary periods are often absurdly long — see Meek Mill, on probation at 30 for a crime he committed at 19 — and seem designed to trap troubled men and women in a system that is purely punitive. We certainly spend enough money locking people up (often again and again). What if instead the focus was improving their prospects post-release, with job training, social support while they got on their feet, and counseling to help them reintegrate into their communities and stay out of trouble? What if the goal of probation was to help men and women released from prison to succeed as productive members of society, rather than to catch and punish them when they make any small misstep? Men and women who behave violently toward others should face serious penalties. Too often, we don’t see acts of sexual violence and violation as “real” violence — if you’re not bruised up or in a body bag, it doesn’t count. Most of the men who commit these acts will never spend a day in the prisons populated by young men like Meek Mill. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5033582/meek-mill-harvey-weinstein/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5033582/meek-mill-harvey-weinstein/"},"headline":"Meek Mill Is In Jail for a Wheelie While Harvey Weinstein Roams Free","datePublished":"2017-11-21T21:01:36.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T18:19:42.312Z","description":"The writer and lawyer looks at the differences in prosecuting different types of crime — and how the race of a defendant may come into play","url":"https://time.com/5033582/meek-mill-harvey-weinstein/","keywords":["Criminal Justice"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb2337c40d1e9498a/6988e4d8ab6d772ec36b085a/gettyimages-820507348.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Jill Filipovic","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/jill-filipovic/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb2337c40d1e9498a/6988e4d8ab6d772ec36b085a/gettyimages-820507348.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Meek Mill \"Wins & Losses\" Album Release Party","caption":"Meek Mill \"Wins & Losses\" Album Release Party","creditText":"Shareif Ziyadat—WireImage","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/criminal-justice/","name":"Criminal Justice"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5033582/meek-mill-harvey-weinstein/","name":"Meek Mill Is In Jail for a Wheelie While Harvey Weinstein Roams Free"}}]}] ```