Mohammed Jahirul Islam
PhD Candidate (Legal Studies)
ORCID: 0000-0002-6048-4831
Supervisors: Professor Dale Spencer and Professor Hollis Moore
Biography
Mohammed Jahirul Islam is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Law and Legal Studies at Carleton University and an Associate Professor in the Department of Criminology and Police Science at Mawlana Bhashani Science and Technology University (MBSTU), Bangladesh. He holds a Bachelor of Social Science (Honours) and a Master of Social Science in Sociology from Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, Bangladesh.
His interdisciplinary scholarship brings criminology, socio-legal studies, sociology, political economy, postcolonial and subaltern studies, and decolonial thought into conversation. His research is particularly concerned with how colonial and postcolonial relations of power continue to shape punishment, prisons, policing, gender, Indigenous marginalization, institutional accountability, and resistance in the Global South.
His doctoral research, “Civil Society, Gender and Prison Transparency in Bangladesh: A Decolonial Political Economy of Carceral Resistance,” examines the relationships among civil society, gender, prison transparency, carceral governance, and resistance in Bangladesh. The project develops a Decolonial Political Economy of Carceral Resistance (DPECR) approach to investigate carceral institutions through the interconnected dynamics of coloniality, political economy, gender, subalternity, institutional power, and resistance. While empirically centred on Bangladesh, his research places Bangladesh in dialogue with broader scholarship on Southern criminology, decolonial criminology, prison governance, and carceral resistance.
Islam has more than a decade of university-level teaching and research experience in criminology and related fields in Bangladesh and has worked as a Teaching Assistant and Research Assistant at Carleton University. He is currently involved with Carleton’s Prison Transparency Project. His academic experience also includes research and policy work concerning prisons, policing, crime, gender, terrorism, and criminal justice.
Research and Teaching Interests
His research and teaching interests include decolonial and counter-colonial criminology; Southern criminology; decolonial political economy; carceral resistance; prison transparency, accountability and oversight; prison governance and reform; punishment and society; postcolonial and subaltern studies; Indigenous peoples and carceral governance; gender and punishment; policing and community policing; and theoretical and historical criminology.
A central concern across his work is how criminological knowledge developed in the Global North travels into postcolonial societies, and how perspectives emerging from Bangladesh and the wider Global South can challenge, revise, and decolonize dominant criminological theories and approaches.
Selected Publications
Islam, M.J., Hossain, M.L., Mondol, M.H., Rana, E.K. (2026). “Why Do We Need a South Asian Decolonial Criminology?” A Study from Postcolonial Subaltern Studies. In: Cavalcanti, R.P., Fonseca, D.S., Vegh Weis, V., Carrington, K., Hogg, R., Scott, J. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Criminology and the Global South. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi-org.proxy.library.carleton.ca/10.1007/978-3-031-74932-2_132-1
Hossain, M. L., Talukder, M. I. A., Islam, M. J., & Mia, M. F. (2025). Navigating ‘bare life’: A study of the Rohingya in the spaces of exception. Asian Ethnicity, 1–22. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14631369.2025.2473625
Islam, M. J., Rana, E. K. (2025). Theoretical Perspectives in Criminology, in Mokerrom Hossain (Edited) Criminology and Criminal Justice in Bangladesh: An Introduction, Dhaka: Bangladesh Institute of Crime and Justice Studies (BICJS).
Islam, M. J. (2024). Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937), in Dr. Khurshed Alam (edited) Modernists and Post-modernist Theories, Dhaka: University Press Limited. (in bengali)
Islam, M. J., & Hossain, M. L. (2025). A comparative book review of two formative texts: Neoliberal policies, mass incarceration, and racism: From political economic and racial legal perspectives. Race and Justice, 15(3), 538–545.
Islam, M. J. (2025). Prison, power and resistance. Journal of Prisoners on Prisons, 34(1).
Islam, M. J. (2023). Power politics in the prison and women resistance. Canadian Journal of Law and Society.
Chowdhury, K., Rana, E. K., Islam, M. J. (2022). Liberal Discourses of Militancy in Bangladesh: An Analysis and Critical Appraisal, Probondhaboli/Perspectives on Social Sciences, Vol-11, pp. 71-92, Center for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences (CASSS), Dhaka: University of Dhaka. (in Bengali)
Chowdhury, K., Choudhury, Z. A., Mamun, S. A., Islam, M. J. (2021). Desistance from Crime: An Empirical Study of Crime Behavior of Released Male Prisoners in Bangladesh, SUST Journal of Social Sciences, Vol-32, Issues: 02, pp. 33-48, Sylhet: Shahjalal University of Science and Technology.
Rana, E. K., Islam, M. J. (2020). NGO discourse of Extrajudicial killings and Enforced disappearance in Bangladesh, International Journal of Criminal Justice Sciences, January – June 2021. Vol. 16 (1): 110–126. South Asian Society of Criminology and Victimology. http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4764157
Banarjee, S., Hussain, M. S., Islam, M. J. (2019). Religious Terrorism in Bangladesh: Patterns, Trends and Causes. in Routledge Handbook of South Asian Criminology. Edited by K. Jaishankar, New York: Routledge (Taylor and Francis Group). Internet Cite:https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780429320118- 22/religious-terrorism-bangladesh-subrata-banarjee-md-shakhawat-hossain- mohammed-jahirul-islam
Uddin, M. B., Islam, M. J., Alam, M. A. (2017). Community Policing in Bangladesh: Issues and Challenges, in Police in the Contemporary Society, Dr. Janaki M C & Anil Kumar S (edited), Mysuru, India: IGGA Publications House.
Islam, M. J., Banarjee, S., Khatun, M. N. (2014). Theories of Female Criminality: A Criminological Analysis, International Journal of Criminology and Sociological Theory, Vol. 7, No. 1, (December), Toronto: York University.URL: http://pi.library.yorku.ca/ojs/index.php/ijcst/article/viewFile/39737/35977
Degrees
PhD, Law and Legal Studies, Carleton University — Candidate
Dissertation: Civil Society, Gender and Prison Transparency in Bangladesh: A Decolonial Political Economy of Carceral Resistance
MSS, Sociology, Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, Bangladesh — 2009
BSS (Honours), Sociology, Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, Bangladesh — 2007
External Academic Profiles
ORCID: https://orcid.org/my-orcid?orcid=0000-0002-6048-4831
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.ca/citations?user=lCvn6pEAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mohammed-jahirul-islam-18b859190/
ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mohammed-Jahirul-Islam?ev=hdr_xprf
Academia: https://mbstu.academia.edu/JahirIslam