CRIME AND PUNISHMENT IN AMERICA Docuseries Sets PBS Premiere

PBS will air the new four-part, eight-hour documentary series Crime and Punishment in America over four consecutive nights on PBS beginning November 16, 2026. The series explores the history of criminal justice in America, from the pre-colonial period to 21st-century mass incarceration. It will also stream on all PBS digital platforms for a period of four weeks. 

The series, directed by Lynn Novick, executive produced by Ken Burns and Sam Pollard, produced by Lucas Frank, Vanessa González-Block, Lynn Novick, and Prisca Pointdujour, is the first documentary offering a comprehensive examination of how the intertwined forces of law, power, race, and class have both shaped and reflected the AMERICAN EXPERIENCE over four centuries.

Told through a human lens, each episode is grounded in the stories of individuals: incarcerated people, victims and family members who’ve been affected, prison guards and wardens, police officers, reformers, lawyers, judges, outlaws, and journalists whose lives were shaped by the policies and politics of their time.

From the public hangings in Colonial America to Franklin D. Roosevelt and J. Edgar Hoover’s war on crime, from Jesse James to John Dillinger, Lucky Luciano to Frank Costello, from early television police procedurals to modern day true crime, from Jim Crow chain gangs to the silent corridors of today’s supermax prison facilities, the series illuminates both the visible and invisible legacies of punishment in American life.

The series features archival footage and first-person voices drawn from letters, memoirs, and testimony brought to life by stage and screen stars including Samuel L. Jackson, LaTanya Richardson Jackson, Laura Linney, Hugh Dancy, Bobby Cannavale, David Hyde Pierce, Matthew Rhys, Michael Stuhlbarg, John Proudstar, Corey Stoll, Bill Camp, and BD Wong. It also features original music by Jongnic Bontemps.

Novick collaborates with a distinguished advisory team of scholars, formerly incarcerated advocates, legal experts, and cultural historians. In addition, subject matter experts representing a wide range of perspectives appear on screen, including former police commissioners, Supreme Court justices, civil rights attorneys, correction officers, and more

The broadcast of Crime and Punishment in America will be accompanied by a collection of educational materials for teachers on the Ken Burns in the Classroom hub on PBS LearningMedia. This collection will include videos, primary sources, and support materials to allow teachers in grades 9-12 to explore key topics in U.S. history, U.S. government, criminal justice, contemporary issues, and/or English through the history of crime and punishment in the United States.

Photo Credit: Library of Congress