The Sentence

She went to prison. They did the time.

An intimate, decade-long documentary portrait of a family fractured by mandatory minimum sentencing, balancing the warmth of familial bonds against the systemic cruelty that separates them.

Cindy Shank, mother of three, is serving a 15-year sentence in federal prison for her tangential involvement with a Michigan drug ring years earlier. This intimate portrait of mandatory minimum drug sentencing's devastating consequences, captured by Cindy's brother, follows her and her family over the course of ten years.