‘Since I Been Down’ Review: Crime and Punishment
The New York Times, May 24, 2022: ‘Since I Been Down’ Review: Crime and Punishment
“On a May night in 1997, in Tacoma, Wash., Kimonti Carter strafed a car he believed was carrying rival gang members. It wasn’t — not that that should matter. One of the car’s five passengers, a college student, Corey Pittman, 19, was killed. Carter, who had recently turned 18, was sentenced to life in prison.
“In the director Gilda Sheppard’s sympathetic documentary ‘Since I Been Down,’ the punishment is also a crime.
“Rife with archival visuals of Tacoma in the late 1980s and ’90s, when crack cocaine and gang violence were claiming lives, the documentary’s greatest strength is as a listening tour, with Carter as its chief guide.”
Additional reading:
Women and Hollywood, May 23, 2022: Gilda Sheppard on Investigating a Culture of Punishment and Racism in “Since I Been Down”
Unbias the News, September 14, 2021: Black Prisoners’ Caucus: How an incarcerated man works for restorative justice and racial equity
