Amidst a landmark class action lawsuit over illegal policing quotas, Crime + Punishment chronicles the remarkable efforts and struggles of a group of black and Latino whistleblower cops and the young minorities they are pressured to arrest and summons in New York City. A highly intimate and cinematic experience with unprecedented access, Crime + Punishment examines the United States' most powerful police department through the brave endeavors of a group of active duty officers and one unforgettable private investigator who risk their careers and safety to bring light to harmful policing practices which have plagued the precincts and streets of New York City for decades.
About The Team
Stephen Maing is an Emmy-award winning filmmaker based in New York City. His filmmaking merges an interest in underrepresented individuals and communities confronting complex power structures, and the nuanced storytelling of observational and visually-driven narratives. His 2018 film Crime + Punishment received a Special Jury Award at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, a 2019 Emmy Award for Outstanding Social Issue Film and was shortlisted for the Oscar for Best Documentary.
Stephen’s previous feature documentary, High Tech, Low Life, chronicled the gripping story of China's first dissident citizen-journalists fighting state-monitored censorship and was broadcast nationally on the award winning series P.O.V. His short film, The Surrender, produced with Academy Award winner Laura Poitras, documented the extreme and selective prosecution of a talented State Department analyst under the Espionage Act. The Surrender received a 2016 World Press Photo Award for Best Documentary and was nominated for a 2016 Emmy Award for Outstanding Short Documentary.
Stephen has made numerous short films published on Time Magazine, PBS, The Nation, New York Times, The Intercept and Field of Vision. Most recently he directed the 2020 film Dirty Gold which follows illicit gold found in consumer products to criminally-operated Miami refineries and ultimately cartel-controlled mines in the Amazon rainforest. The documentary is part of the second season of Alex Gibney's Dirty Money series on Netflix.
He is a Sundance Institute Fellow and recipient of the International Documentary Association's inaugural Enterprise Investigative Journalism grant as well as a John Jay/Harry Frank Guggenheim Reporting Fellow.
