Crime Fictions // How Racist Lies Built a System of Mass Wrongful Conviction

An explosive account of how Americas shadow system of justice is purposefully designed to ensnare and criminalize innocent Black childrenfrom an award-winning sociologist

Wrongful convictions have long been viewed as rare exceptions to an otherwise well-oiled criminal justice machine. But after years spent investigating the largest criminal courthouse in the country, Chicago’s Cook County, Nicole Gonzalez Van Cleve began to suspect otherwise. When she discovered hundreds of cases indicting innocent Black youth of crimes they didnt commit, she realized that wrongful convictions were more than a set of anomalies. Arresting and incarcerating these kids was the pointthe crime would be tailored to fit.

In a suspenseful narrative account based on hundreds of interviews, media analysis, archival research, and hidden documents, Gonzalez Van Cleve presents a groundbreaking howdunnit, illustrating how this shadow system operates. The police, informed by assumptions of Black guilt, find a criminal, and create a narrative to pin him to the case they aim to close. They routinely coerce confessions, bury evidence, and persuade witnesses to lie.

Lee Hester, a disabled fourteen-year-old boy, is branded a super predator and convicted for killing his teacher; Romarr Gipson is called a threat to public safety at seven years old and charged with a murder that is physically impossible for him to commit. In the cases of the Central Park Five, Roscetti Four, and the Dixmoor Five, groups of boys are characterized as wolf packs to make their behavior seem sinister.

These crime fictions, predicated on enduring racist myths, often defy logic and even DNA evidence. Nevertheless, they are actively produced, institutionalized by police, enshrined in our legal records by the courts, and propped up by media coverage. While injustice perpetuated by police has been more widely reported on in the past twenty years, nothing comes close to Gonzalez Van Cleves bombshell: A systematic account of the secret, far-reaching bureaucracy built to sustain this shadow system of justice.

By placing the lost boys at the center of their own story, what emerges is a historical lineage of wrongful convictions, and a powerful indictment of the culture that so willingly places faith in the polices promise to keep us safe.

Nicole Gonzalez Van Cleveis Associate Professor of Sociology at Brown University and an affiliated scholar with the American Bar Foundation in Chicago, Illinois. She is the award-winning author ofCrook Countyand has contributed articles toThe New York Times,The Atlantic,NBC News,Crains Chicago Business, andCNN. Her legal commentary has been featured on NPR, NBC News, CNN,and MSNBCsThe Rachel Maddow Show.

• Publisher: Random House
• Publish Date: May 19, 2026
• Pages: 288
• Language: English
• Type: Hardback
• EAN/UPC: 9780593447086
• Dimensions: 9.3 X 6.1 X 0.0 inches | 1.19 pounds
• BISAC Categories: Politics, Society & Current Affairs