Research on race, law and criminal justice to be presented by Temple University author

Nicole Gonzales-Van Cleve, Ph.D., assistant professor at Temple University, will discuss her research on race, law and criminal justice during a presentation at 5:30 p.m. on April 7 at Lycoming College. The presentation, to be held in the Jane Schultz Room in the Wertz Student Center at Lycoming College, is free and open to the public.

Gonzales-Van Cleve is the author of the 2016 book, “Crook County: Racism and Injustice in America’s Largest Criminal Court.” Her extensive study details the complicit, and sometimes demeaning, legal culture of Chicago’s court personnel. In doing so, “Crook County” provides a powerful narrative that forces readers to reexamine colorblind justice in America. Her ethnography was nominated for an NAACP Image Award.

Gonzalez-Van Cleve’s research examines the cultural impact of mass incarceration on criminal justice institutions and the contradictory ways racial stigma is reproduced. Along with her latest book, she has published papers in various publications including Criminology, and Law and Social Inquiry. She also published a chapter titled “Reinterpreting the Zealous Advocate: Multiple Intermediary Roles of the Criminal Defense Attorney” in “Lawyers in Practice: Ethical Decision Making in Context,” (Leslie Levin and Lynn Mather eds., University of Chicago Press, 2012).

She is a recipient of several fellowships and grants including the 2014-2015 Ford Foundation Fellowship Postdoctoral Award, the Farrel Grant for Public Policy and the Badesch Fellowship from the Chicago Appleseed Fund for Justice. She earned recognition for the 2010 Outstanding Graduate Paper presented by the Sociology of Law Section of the American Sociological Association. Van Cleve is the current co-chair of the Law and Society Association’s Collaborative Research Network on Critical Research on Race and the Law; a junior fellow of Yale University’s Urban Ethnography Project; a member of the Racial Democracy, Crime and Justice Network; and is a visiting scholar at the American Bar Foundation.

Gonzelez-Van Cleve served in The Office of the Chief of Staff at the White House during the Clinton Administration and subsequently worked for five years as a consumer brand planner for Leo Burnett, USA. She has been the research director for Chicago Appleseed Fund for Justice, a policy nonprofit organization that specialized in legal advocacy.

The presentation is sponsored by the Strauser Lectureship Endowment that brings nationally-recognized speakers to the College, and is organized by the Criminal Justice department. The lectureship honors former Professor Larry Strauser who founded the interdisciplinary criminal justice program in 1977 and who worked untiringly to advocate and educate to improve the legal system in the U.S.