Three weeks before he was named the Democratic nominee for president, Joe Biden released a comprehensive criminal justice reform plan.

The President-elect proposes abolishing the federal death penalty, shutting down private prisons and incentivizing states to bring down their imprisonment rate. He also promises to expand funding for drug courts and more aggressively investigative local police departments that show a pattern of civil rights violations.

Though state and local governments are the primary funders and operators of law enforcement agencies, corrections and court systems, Biden's adm...