In this special issue, a diverse range of authors confront questions about whether, and how, we can reconstruct criminal law (as well as its associated institutional forms, including the trial and the penal process) in progressive ways. Amid a resurgence of interest in abolitionism, is there still space for a scholarship focused on critique oriented to reconstruction rather than abolition? And what are the conditions of existence of such reconstructive projects across both different areas of criminal law and practice and different jurisdictions?