Page 5 of 42 103 Minn. L. Rev. 844, *850 It is [*851] unclear what portion of those incidents merit criminal prosecution. Key facts are often disputed, and while federal and state jurisdiction are coextensive here, federal criminal law generally sets a higher bar for liability than state law, especially due to its more onerous mens rea requirement. 7? That makes the former an imperfect backstop to the latter, because they are only partially redundant. And as recent changes in federal policy suggest, 74 redundancy between governments is subject to political shifts in those governments; federal oversight of state enforcement works only if federal officials are committed to the oversight role. Moreover, keeping prosecution in the exclusive province of executive officials keeps prosecutorial discretion more closely aligned with political majorities and thereby with popular sentiments about certain groups of defendants (such as police officers) and victim groups (such as criminal suspects). In this context, redundancy in state law charging by courts or private actors, rather than rival prosecutors, might make a real contribution. Finally, cases of sexual assault reveal a weakness of federalism-based redundancy. State and federal criminal jurisdiction in the United States overlap more than elsewhere, but they are not wholly coextensive. Federal prosecutors lack authority over most assaults that do not involve public officials or federal [*852] property. Sexual assaults are one context in which the enforcement strategies favored in Europe and England - regulated private prosecution or review of declination decisions - hold more promise. I. UNDERENFORCEMENT AND REASONS NOT TO PROSECUTE A. Sources of Unyustified Noncharging Decisions Public prosecutors are the gatekeepers of criminal law enforcement, and justice systems employ a variety of safeguards against prosecutors’ misjudgment, bias, incompetence, or laziness. Most are directed at prosecutors’ charging decisions rather