Crook County

Nicole Gonzalez Van Cleve is an award-winning American sociologist specializing in racialized justice in the United States. Gonzalez Van Cleve is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at Brown University and an affiliated scholar at the American Bar Foundation in Chicago, IL. Her research and teaching challenge conventional paradigms in the study of race and racism by drawing on theoretical perspectives rooted in cultural sociology and law.

Gonzalez Van Cleve’s educational and professional backgrounds speak directly to the subject of Crook County: Racism and Injustice in America’s Largest Criminal Court. Her interest in racialized justice began as an undergraduate student, during her clerkship at the Cook County Courthouse. Gonzalez Van Cleve subsequently earned a bachelor’s degree in political science and a master’s and a doctorate degree in sociology from Northwestern University, where she received the Farrel Grant for Public Policy and the Badesch Fellowship from the Chicago Appleseed Fund for Justice, a nonprofit organization specializing in legal advocacy. During the Clinton Administration, and before completing her PhD, Gonzalez Van Cleve worked in the Office of the Chief of Staff at the White House. She is currently co-chair of the Law and Society Association’s Collaborative Research Network on Critical Research on Race and the Law, a member of the Racial Democracy, Crime, and Justice Network, and a Junior Fellow of the Urban Ethnography Project at Yale University.

Gonzalez Van Cleve has published extensively on the problem of racialized justice in the United States. In 2015, she published “Criminal Justice Through ‘Colorblind’ Lenses,” in Law and Social Inquiry, an article approaching sociology and criminal justice through the lens of critical race theory. This article received the 2017 Kimberlé Crenshaw Outstanding Article Award from The Society for the Study of Social Problem’s (SSSP) Division on Racial and Ethnic Minorities. In 2016, Gonzalez Van Cleve published “Interorganizational Utility of Welfare Stigma in the Criminal Justice System” in Criminology. Co-authored with Armando Lara-Milan, the article sheds light on the use of racial and class stereotypes in American courts. The article won the 2017 Distinguished Article Prize from the Sociology of Law Section of the American Sociological Association.

Gonzalez Van Cleve incorporated the research from these publications into Crook County: Racism and Injustice in America’s Largest Criminal Court, which won 11 awards and finalist distinctions for its contributions to sociology, criminal justice, law, social justice, and media. These awards include the American Sociological Association’s 2019 Distinguished Book Prize (the discipline’s highest book honor); the Society for the Study of Social Problems’ 2017 Eduardo Bonilla-Silva Outstanding Book Award; the American Sociological Association’s 2017 Oliver Cromwell Book Award; and the Association of American Publishers’ 2017 Prose Award for Excellence in Social Sciences. Crook County: Racism and Injustice in America’s Largest Criminal Court was also nominated for an NAACP Image Award for an Outstanding Literary Work from a debut author, in addition to receiving a Silver Medal from the Independent Publisher Book Awards in the Current Events/Social Issues category.

Gonzalez Van Cleve is widely recognized as an expert in the study of racialized justice. In addition to her many awards and accolades, she has provided legal commentary for The New York Times, NPR, CNN, NBC News, and MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show.