Sociological Jurisprudence and Criminal Justice Reform: Comparative Lessons for Bangladesh from India and the United States

Abstract

Roscoe Pound’s sociological jurisprudence theory views law as social engineering, with legal change responding to societal demands. The Bangladesh criminal justice system confronts several obstacles, including trial delays, overcrowded jails, insufficient legal assistance, and the absence of an institutionalised plea-bargaining mechanism. Existing literature seldom examines Bangladesh’s criminal justice system through the perspective of sociological jurisprudence or draws systematic comparative ideas from other legal systems. This paper aims to address that deficiency by investigating how sociological jurisprudence might be utilised to guide changes in Bangladesh using comparative perspectives from India and the United States. Using a qualitative, doctrinal, and comparative research approach, the article analyses statute provisions, court precedents, and scholarly literature across three legal systems. The findings imply that, despite India’s implementation of plea bargaining under the Criminal Procedure Code of 2005, its efforts to alleviate case backlogs are hampered by ineffective enforcement and low public awareness. Plea bargaining is widely utilised in the United States, which improves procedural efficiency but raises concerns about coercion, injustice, and degradation of justice. The lessons learnt from the two countries imply that Bangladesh should carefully construct contextually relevant changes that balance efficiency and equitable principles, such as plea bargaining, restorative justice systems, and better legal help access. Lastly, the paper argues that sociological jurisprudence provides a normative and pragmatic framework for advancing reforms in Bangladesh’s criminal justice system, where the law evolves in response to socioeconomic reality and human rights.