In 1993, Washington State voters passed the three-strikes law and sent children to prison for life without parole. We feared these children as irredeemable superpredators. Our fear was wrong, but in 2020, sixteen states continue to keep children in prison for life. SINCE I BEEN DOWN shows the power of these children, now adults nearly forty years later, creating a true path to justice and healing from inside their prison walls.
“We dare say that a lot of the answers society is searching for (today) will be found in prison” -- Touré Zimbabwe.
In 1993, Washington State voters passed the three-strikes law and sent children to prison for life without parole. We feared these children as irredeemable superpredators. Our fear was wrong, but in 2020, sixteen states continue to keep children in prison for life. SINCE I BEEN DOWN shows the power of these children, now adults nearly forty years later, creating a true path to justice and healing from inside their prison walls.
“We dare say that a lot of the answers society is searching for (today) will be found in prison” -- Touré Zimbabwe.
Gilda is an award-winning filmmaker who has screened her documentaries throughout the United States, and internationally in Ghana, West Africa, at the Cannes Film Festivals in France, and in Germany at the International Black Film Festival in Berlin. Sheppard is a 2017 Hedgebrook Fellow for documentary film.
In 1993, Washington State voters passed the three-strikes law and sent children to prison for life without parole. We feared these children as irredeemable superpredators. Our fear was wrong, but in 2020, sixteen states continue to keep children in prison for life. SINCE I BEEN DOWN shows the power of these children, now adults nearly forty years later, creating a true path to justice and healing from inside their prison walls.
“We dare say that a lot of the answers society is searching for (today) will be found in prison” -- Touré Zimbabwe.