As Justice Brandeis famously explained, “It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.” The experimental laboratory aspect of US federalism has been particularly useful in the area of criminal justice reform. From Prohibition in the 1920s to the most recent experiments in abolishing pretrial detention and “defund the police” to shifting crime response to social and medical services, the U.S. has provided a string of often brave (or sometimes foolish) experiments in trying to reduce crime and create a better society. Abolition of plea bargaining, restorative justice, legalizing of hard drugs, mandatory arrest for domestic violence, decriminalization of retail theft, abolition of early release on parole, recodification of criminal law into a single code, restricting judicial sentencing discretion with comprehensive guidelines, legalization of prostitution – all of these and other American experiments have taught us much about what does and does not work.

—Clever Earth (cearth@sas.upenn.edu), Hannah Agarwal (hannah26@sas.upenn.edu), Raunak Mandal (raunakm@sas.upenn.edu), Corey Rudman (crudman@sas.upenn.edu)

—Mentor: Paul H. Robinson, Colin S. Divers Professor of Law, University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School