Category: Volume 101

What is criminal law minimalism? At first blush, minimalism appears to be the sober and sensible cousin of abolition. Where the language of abolition is radical, utopian, and absolute, the language of minimalism suggests moderation, pragmatism, and nuance. As calls for abolition have gained ground in the U.S. legal academy and in activist circles, some scholars have pushed back, arguing

American criminal law is facing a crisis of meaning. In our mass incarceration era, most argue that we are prosecuting too many, too often, for too much conduct. Spurred by this policy crisis, scholars and policymakers have fractured into two schools, each implicitly motivated by an archetype. First, the “traditional school” invokes the violent criminal archetype: a murderer, rapist, or

Reform. Abolish. Minimize. Criminal law scholars broadly understand that we need to do *something* about our penal system and the problem of mass incarceration. We just can’t agree on what that “something” is. The debate about the right path forward raises several existential questions. How can reform be bad if it helps even one person suffer just a little less?

Does the State have any obligation not to enforce its own law? Scholars have long debated whether and to what extent we—that is, us as citizens of the State—have an obligation to obey the law. Frequently taken for granted, however, is an assumption that the State generally has a corresponding duty to enforce the law. Now, to be

People suspected or convicted of crimes are constantly confronted with choices that can have significant impact on their liberty interests. They may be asked to consent to a search or seizure of their house, car, or person, or to explain themselves during interrogation. They may have to decide whether to accept a plea offer that not only requires them to

Many penal abolitionists hold that criminal courts have been complicit in mass incarceration and essential to an irredeemably unjust and discriminatory system. As abolitionist scholars explain, courts are “the legal pathway from an arrest to a prison sentence, with myriad systems of control in between.” As such, they share with other players in the criminal justice system—primarily the police

After advocates argued that circumstances attendant to late adolescent offenders make them less culpable for their offenses and better disposed to rehabilitation, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) held in January 2024 that it is unconstitutional to sentence eighteen-to-twenty-year-olds to life without parole. Last summer, Connecticut passed legislation providing a “second look” opportunity for parole to those incarcerated for parole

How much and what kind of criminal justice do fair societies need? This question underlies many of the debates on the criminal legal system around the world. In public debates on this issue in the United States people have offered three main answers to this question in recent decades. Tough-on-crime supporters of mass incarceration have claimed that the United States