Crime Fictions

“In a country so certain that it values fairness, justice, and that so loudly proclaims its commitment to keeping people safe from harm, Crime Fictions is a sobering and most painful wake-up call. At once a beautiful rescuing of the lives of so many Black lives that have been irreparably scarred by wrongful accusation and conviction, and an unflinching reminder that it is on all of us to insist that this broken system is dismantled, this is a must-read reckoning with past and present alike.”—Heather Ann Thompson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Fear and Fury and Blood in the Water “Nicole Gonzalez Van Cleve is a masterful storyteller and a rigorous scholar. Yet again, she has written a book that is deeply moving, brilliant, and righteous. You will never look at the institutions of criminal law the same way again after reading this book. It is a clarion call for fairness and humanity that should inspire us all to demand justice instead of punishment.”—Imani Perry, National Book Award-winning author of South to America “Nicole Gonzalez Van Cleve powerfully exposes a racist shadow system run by police and enabled by unethical prosecutors, anti-Black stereotypes, and junk science that brands Black children as ‘monsters’ and deliberately convicts them of crimes they did not commit. The stories she tells are searing—almost too painful to read—yet far too urgent to ignore. An incisive, essential indictment of a corrupt criminal legal system, Crime Fictions is also a compelling call for radical change.”—Dorothy Roberts, author of Killing the Black Body and Torn Apart “Beautifully written and powerfully argued, Crime Fictions is a devastating indictment of criminal injustice.”—James Forman Jr., Pultizer Prize-winning author of Locking Up Our Own