Winner of the 2017 Eduardo Bonilla-Silva Outstanding Book Award,
sponsored by the Society for the Study of Social Problems.
Finalist for the C. Wright Mills Book Award, sponsored by the Society
for the Study of Social Problems.
Winner of the 2017 Oliver Cromwell Cox Book Award, sponsored by the
American Sociological Association's Section on Racial and Ethnic
Minorities.
Winner of the 2017 Mary Douglas Prize for Best Book, sponsored by the
American Sociological Association's Sociology of Culture Section.
Honorable Mention in the 2017 Book Award from the American Sociological
Association's Section on Race, Class, and Gender.
NAACP Image Award Nominee for an Outstanding Literary Work from a debut
author.
Winner of the 2017 Prose Award for Excellence in Social Sciences and the
2017 Prose Category Award for Law and Legal Studies, sponsored by the
Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division, Association of American
Publishers.
Silver Medal from the Independent Publisher Book Awards (Current
Events/Social Issues category).
Americans are slowly waking up to the dire effects of racial profiling,
police brutality, and mass incarceration, especially in disadvantaged
neighborhoods and communities of color. The criminal courts are the
crucial gateway between police action on the street and the processing
of primarily black and Latino defendants into jails and prisons. And yet
the courts, often portrayed as sacred, impartial institutions, have
remained shrouded in secrecy, with the majority of Americans kept in the
dark about how they function internally. Crook County bursts open the
courthouse doors and enters the hallways, courtrooms, judges' chambers,
and attorneys' offices to reveal a world of punishment determined by
race, not offense.
Nicole Gonzalez Van Cleve spent ten years working in and investigating
the largest criminal courthouse in the country, Chicago-Cook County, and
based on over 1,000 hours of observation, she takes readers inside our
so-called halls of justice to witness the types of everyday racial
abuses that fester within the courts, often in plain sight. We watch
white courtroom professionals classify and deliberate on the fates of
mostly black and Latino defendants while racial abuse and due process
violations are encouraged and even seen as justified. Judges fall asleep
on the bench. Prosecutors hang out like frat boys in the judges'
chambers while the fates of defendants hang in the balance. Public
defenders make choices about which defendants they will try to "save"
and which they will sacrifice. Sheriff's officers cruelly mock and abuse
defendants' family members.
Delve deeper into Crook County with related media and instructor
resources.
Crook County's powerful and at times devastating narratives reveal
startling truths about a legal culture steeped in racial abuse.
Defendants find themselves thrust into a pernicious legal world where
courtroom actors live and breathe racism while simultaneously committing
themselves to a colorblind ideal. Gonzalez Van Cleve urges all citizens
to take a closer look at the way we do justice in America and to hold
our arbiters of justice accountable to the highest standards of
equality.
