Crime and Punishment in America is the first documentary series to tell the consequential story of criminal justice in America from the colonial era to today.  

This landmark series will, through gripping personal stories, reveal how a nation founded on the soaring ideals of liberty, justice, equality, and freedom, eventually became the world’s leading incarcerator, with more people in prison and jail than any other country in history.  With just four percent of the globe’s population, America today accounts for one out of five incarcerated people on earth. 

This epic 4-part, 8-hour series is centered on riveting first person stories of men and women who served time in the nation’s prisons and jails - some for very serious crimes - from the early 1800s to today. Interweaving their individual accounts with the perspectives of judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys,  politicians, prison wardens, police officers, journalists, and victims, this ambitious series illuminates the history of criminal justice in America from many angles, and tells this enormously relevant story as it has never before been told. 

Directed and written by Lynn Novick, the documentary is executive produced by award-winning filmmakers Ken Burns and Sam Pollard, and is a production of Skiff Mountain Films in association with WETA and Florentine Films.

Ohio State Penitentiary, 1910. Columbus Metropolitan Library