Crook County

Crook County: Racism and Injustice in America’s Largest Criminal Court is a work of nonfiction by Nicole Gonzalez Van Cleve, an American sociologist specializing in issues of race, racism, and criminal justice. Published in 2016, the book exposes the deep-seated racism and corruption of the criminal justice system in Cook County, Illinois, focusing on the court apparatus. Drawing on more than a decade of ethnographic research, Gonzalez Van Cleve argues that legal processes, such as prosecutorial discretion, bail hearings, and sentencing practices, are systematically biased against poor people of color. Crook County: Racism and Injustice in America’s Largest Criminal Court won 11 awards and finalist distinctions for its contributions to sociology, criminal justice, law, social justice, and media, including the American Sociological Association’s Distinguished Book Prize, the discipline’s highest book honor.

This study guide references the 2016 edition published by Stanford University Press.

Content Warning: The source material addresses racism and racial inequity in the US criminal justice system. References to racial degradation, including the use of the N-word, and racial violence appear throughout the text.

Summary

Crook County: Racism and Injustice in America’s Largest Criminal Court is organized into five chapters, with an Introduction, a Conclusion, and a robust scholarly apparatus comprising notes and a method’s appendix.