Partnership Between Reporter and Filmmaker Explores Juvenile Sentencing Laws

Cyntoia Brown returns from the last day of her criminal trial in 2006.

On paper, it may have seemed like the nearly seven-year long journey USC Annenberg professor Dan Birman had spent documenting the case of Cyntoia Brown, a teenager arrested for murder in Tennessee, was all but over with the release of his documentary in 2011. But when producers of the weekly PBS series “Independent Lens” approached Birman and Anita Wadhwani, an investigative reporter at The Tennessean, to partner on “Sentencing Children,” a multi-part digital series exploring juvenile sentencing laws in the state, Brown’s tale returned back to the spotlight.

“I had no idea that the story would transcend as it has all of these years. We have a Facebook page with over 8,000 people paying attention to news involving the subject—especially Cyntoia Brown,” Birman said. “I think this is because we, as a nation, have a lot of work to do to figure out how to resolve how juveniles are handled within the system.”

Dan Birman

According to Birman, the seven-part video series is expected to conclude this month. Among the topics covered include proposed legislation that would reexamine juvenile sentencing and offer the chance of early release for juveniles and a look at Brown’s appeal in 2013. Additionally, stories written by Wadhwani will appear occasionally in The Tennessean.

“I was quite intrigued by the idea of partnering with a news outlet for a couple of reasons. While kids can do some terrible things, the hard part for the justice system is to work the problem backward,” Birman said. “How did these problems manifest in the first place? It’s a conundrum that needs a lot of exposure and community discussion. If our documentary could inspire more discussion, on any platform, I’m all for it.”

For Wadhwani, who had spent several years reporting on the juvenile justice system, the opportunity to collaborate with Birman was a relatively easy choice to make.

“The single most heartbreaking investigative story I have ever done detailed all that went wrong for a kid who might be alive today had he not got tangled up in Tennessee’s juvenile justice system,” Wadhwani said.

The bulk of the collaborative process revolved around outlining what the series would entail. Though Wadhwani’s stories are linked with Berman’s video pieces thematically, the pair has primarily worked independently of each other.

“Our stories—(in) video and print—parallel each other but don’t mirror each other. Dan has spent years illuminating the issue of sentencing teens to life by focusing on one young woman’s story,” Wadhwani said. “I didn’t want to duplicate his work in my print stories, which have had a broader focus on the system—although I will be focusing on other individuals’ stories in future installments.”