WHO WE HELP
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Complete Picture specifically advocates for defendants who are integral providers to their families and in their community who, since being convicted, have made great strides in improving their lives, choosing to be accountable, achieving and maintaining sobriety, finding therapy and pursuing educational goals.
We have discovered that personal stories, told with utmost care and precision, have the power to foster empathy, bring historical racial trauma to the forefront & achieve more equitable outcomes. Ultimately, over time, this can heal our country.
In the words of the honorable Federal District Judge England, referring specifically to Complete Picture’s work:
“I want to say that that video that I watched not once, not twice, but three times, was one of the most impressive things that I’ve ever had submitted to me with respect to sentencing. It was an allocution, if you will, that was on steroids. It gave the Court an opportunity to see who you are.”
Our videos don’t solely impact the sentence of their subject. For Judges, these stories plant a seed, a reminder that other defendants who stand before them also have complex mitigating circumstances, have achieved compelling transformations and have a responsibility to their families and communities that rely on them.
The defendants we advocate for are …
Racial Minorities
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Statistically, black, brown, and economically disadvantaged defendants are more likely to be incarcerated than their white and middle-class counterparts, and they face longer sentences.
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According to a 2023 U.S. Sentencing Commission analysis, after controlling for offense level, criminal history, and other factors, Black men received federal sentences 13.4% longer than similarly situated white men.​
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CPic’s videos are successfully challenging implicit bias by offering the judge a sense of what it might have been like to walk in the defendant’s shoes.
Women
A 2022 Report by The Sentencing Project revealed the following three statistics:
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Women’s state prison populations grew 585% over 40 years, roughly double the growth in men’s prisons.​
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Though many more men are in prison than women, the rate of growth for female imprisonment has been twice as high as that of men since 1980.
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Our country punishes women more harshly than other countries punish their citizens of any gender.
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According to the MacArthur Foundation’s Safety & Justice Challenge (2023): roughly 75% of women who have been or are incarcerated have experienced domestic/intimate partner violence. 86% have experienced sexual violence.
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A 2018 report from Bureau of Justice Statistics disclosed that almost half of all prisoners in the U.S. are incarcerated due to a drug offense. Prisons are not effective drug rehabilitation centers.
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As evidenced in a report published by the US National Library of Medicine National Institute of Health, 70% of people who suffer from Substance Use Disorder have a history of childhood trauma. Shifting resources to a community-based prevention such as affordable counseling, medical care, and treatment for substance abuse will help circumvent the path to prison.​
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A 2025 report from the Bureau of Prisons disclosed that 43% of people in federal custody in the U.S. are incarcerated due to a drug offense. Prisons are not effective drug rehabilitation centers.
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Studies from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (2020–2024) show that more than half of people with substance use disorders have experienced childhood trauma. Shifting resources to community-based
People Suffering from Addiction
prevention, such as affordable counseling, medical care, and treatment for substance abuse will help circumvent the path to prison.​
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People Suffering from Mental Illness
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There are ~10× more people with serious mental illness in jails and prisons than in state psychiatric hospitals (Treatment Advocacy Center, 2025).
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About 4 in 10 people in state prisons and nearly half of those in local jails have a history of mental health problems (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2021).
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Complete Pictures videos include interviews with the defendant’s personal physician’s therapists or counselors - who are best positioned to recommend better rehabilitation alternatives.
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The following two statistics are noted in author Bryan Stevenson’s acclaimed book “Just Mercy.”
Economically Disadvantaged
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Disadvantaged people lack the resources to present a complete picture of the factors that led to their crime or the positive contributions they make to their families and communities.
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A new study by Sociologist and Stanford professor Matthew Clair describes how disadvantaged people, predisposed to distrust the legal system, are more likely to experience tension with their court-appointed attorneys. This tension further deepens their disadvantaged position.
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Our videos allow them to tell their story in an unthreatening environment, in their own voice and in the voices of their loved one.
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The Affluent
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Even individuals with means can struggle to have their full story told. One serious mistake can sometimes effectively erase an otherwise exemplary life.
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"Nearly every defendant, privileged or disadvantaged, experienced some form of alienation from school, family, neighbors, peers, or broader society in
adolescence. Criminalized behaviors, such as drug use and dealing, emerged among alienation."
Matthew Clair
Author of Privilege and Punishment
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At the gateway between freedom and prison, one judge’s decision dictates the trajectory of a person’s life forever. The judge has little before him but the hard, cold facts of the case.
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Our video portrait is an invaluable tool, providing a more accurate and well-rounded portrayal of the defendant as a full human being.
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Judges
Families
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When a person is sent to prison, the fallout for their family and community has long-range consequences.
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According to the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s KIDS COUNT Data Center (2022-2023), roughly five million U.S. children, about 1 in 14, have had a parent incarcerated at some point. For African-American children, the rate is one in nine.
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The Sentencing Project’s 2024 updated statistics reveal that 62% of women in state prisons are mothers to children under18.
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The same report also points out that Native American girls are incarcerated at roughly > 4× the rate of white white girls, and Black girls at over 2.5× the rate of white girls.
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Children with an incarcerated parent are about twice as likely to become justice-involved later in life; rigorous studies estimate ~40% higher odds of antisocial behavior (Johnson & Arditti, Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 2023)."
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The Sentencing Project (2022): On any given day, as many as 2.7 million children – or one in 28 – have a parent in prison or jail.
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Complete Picture’s videos help minimize collateral damage such as children being sent to foster homes and elderly parents to care facilities.
Taxpayers
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Following the Money of Mass Incarceration published by the Prison Policy Initiative in 2017, the entire system of mass criminalization costs U.S. state and federal governments and the families of justice-involved-people $182 billion per year.
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According to Criminal In Justice, a Berkeley Law University of California report, the yearly incarceration cost burdening the American taxpayer ranges, depending on the state, between $31,000 and $120,000 per inmate. Complete Picture has been instrumental in saving taxpayers millions of dollars.​​
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On average, each Complete Picture sentencing video reduces prison time for the defendant by 3.5 years, savings of more than a quarter million taxpayer dollars per defendant in California.
The Public
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The Bureau of Justice Statistics (2022) reports that due to the expansion of criminalization more than 100 million people, more than one in three U.S. citizens of working age has a criminal record.
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American Psychological Association featured an article called "Incarceration Nation" stating that the United States is home to almost 5% of the world’s population and 25% of its prisoners.
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Reentry Resources notes that 95% of people incarcerated in state prisons eventually return to their communities, traumatized by the brutal environment they experienced there.
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Our videos emphasize that if the person is ready to engage in mental health care, drug rehab, or job training, such engagement can enable their return as a productive member of society.
Defense Attorneys
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“Hiring Complete Picture to produce a sentencing video… was the single most important thing I did for my client as his attorney. After reviewing the 12-minute video, the District Court Judge sentenced him to time served... In the three years prior to sentencing, my client made some incredible changes in his life. The sentencing video captured the emotional and visual qualities of his story of change in a way my lawyerly words on paper could never…
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I can’t say enough about the amazing work of Complete Picture. They are committed to reshaping the way judges absorb information about defendants they sentence, and to tell the stories of struggle and change by those impacted by the criminal justice system.”
Etan Zaitsu
Attorney at Law
