Book
Crook County : racism and injustice in America's largest criminal court
Publication Information
Stanford, California : Stanford Law Books, an imprint of Stanford University Press, [2016]
Physical Description
xiv, 252 pages ; 24 cm
Summary
"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. 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. 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"--Book jacket.
Contents
- Introduction : Opening the courthouse doors
- Separate and unequal justice
- Of monsters and mopes : racial and criminal "immorality"
- Race in everyday legal practices
- There are no racists here : prosecutors in the criminal courts
- Rethinking Gideon's army : defense attorneys in the criminal courts
- Conclusion : Racialized punishment in the courts
- Methods appendix.