Mahfuzul I. Khondaker

Is the job burning me out? An exploratory test of the job characteristics model on the emotional burnout of prison staff

Although emotional burnout of prison staff is costly to all involved, it has not received the kind of research attention that is warranted. This exploratory study focused on the impact of job characteristics on the emotional exhaustion dimension of burnout of prison staff. Using data from 272 staff members at a Midwestern state prison, this study found that both job feedback and job autonomy had negative effects on the index of emotional exhaustion burnout; however, both supervision and job variety had nonsignificant effects. The study further discussed possible reasons for both the significant and nonsignificant relationships.

Policing views from around the globe: An exploratory study of the views of college students from Bangladesh, Canada, Nigeria, and the United States

Although many forces influence how the police operate and how the public views them, cross-national studies on attitudes of the police are rare; therefore, this exploratory study, which examined the views of trust in police and police civility among a convenience sample of 1,425 students from five universities in four different nations, was conducted. U.S. respondents had the highest views of trust in police and police civility, whereas Bangladeshi and Nigerian college students had the lowest levels; Canadian views were in between the other nations. Social perspectives, history of policing, and sociopolitical structure are salient factors that may contribute to differing views in different countries.

A Preliminary Study of Gender Differences in Death Penalty Views of College Students From Bangladesh, China, Nigeria, and the United States

This study examined whether there were any gender differences among college students in Bangladesh (N = 258), China (N = 524), Nigeria (N = 274), and the United States (N = 484) in death penalty support and belief in the criminological ideologies (retribution, deterrence, incapacitation, morality, life without parole, and innocence) to support or oppose it. No significant gender difference between men and women in the overall level of death penalty support was observed except in the United States. In addition, although there were some gender-based differences in reasons to support or oppose the death penalty, the differences were not as common and only rarely as pronounced as in the United States. The findings indicate that the gender gap in capital punishment views may be limited to the United States.

Bangladeshi immigrants' willingness to report crime in New York City

Crime reporting by citizens has important implications for police effectiveness in crime control and community safety, yet research on immigrants’ willingness to report crime to the police is very limited. Relying on a purposive and convenience sample of 202 Bangladeshi immigrants from six areas in the New York City, this study examined Bangladeshi immigrants’ willingness to report crime and factors that may affect Bangladeshi immigrants’ willingness to report crime. Results showed that a great majority of the participants reported that they were willing to report crime to the police, and there was a high level of concordance between the participants’ crime-reporting intentions and behaviours. Both fear of crime and general satisfaction with the police were positively related to the Bangladeshi immigrants’ willingness to report crime.

Formal and Informal Crime Control Views in Bangladesh and the United States

Crime control methods can be grouped into two major categories: formal and informal. Formal crime control uses the law and government agencies (e.g., police, courts, and prisons) to deter crime, whereas informal crime control utilizes moral and social institutions (e.g., the family, religion, peers, and neighborhood groups) to deter illegal behaviors. This exploratory study used t tests, chi-square tests, ordinal ordered regression, and ordinary least squares regression analyses of survey data from 258 Bangladeshi and 484 U.S. college students to explore students’ perceptions of formal and informal crime control. Bangladeshi students had more support for both formal and informal crime controls than their U.S. counterparts; however, U.S. students were more likely to feel that being rejected by family, neighbors, and peers was effective at deterring crime. Both groups felt that punishment by the law was needed to deter repeat offenders. When asked to rank formal and informal crime control mechanisms, Bangladeshi students ranked family higher than U.S. students did, whereas U.S. students ranked the importance of peers higher than Bangladeshi students. Bangladeshi respondents also ranked the neighborhood as being important to controlling crime. Overall, the results indicated that Bangladeshi respondents strongly supported most methods of both formal and informal crime control. U.S. respondents were generally more supportive of formal than informal methods, although they were less supportive than Bangladeshi respondents, perhaps because of pessimism over longstanding issues with crime.

Gender and Capital Punishment Views Among Japanese and U.S. College Students

Gender is a strong predictor of death penalty support and views in the United States, with men being more supportive and punitive than women. This exploratory study was undertaken to determine whether these same differences would be present in Japan, a nation that also imposes the death penalty. Students at a Japanese university and a U.S. university were surveyed. While the proportion of students supporting the death penalty in the United States and Japan were similar, U.S. women were less supportive and less punitive than U.S. men, while Japanese women were more likely to support the death penalty and hold more punitive views than Japanese men.

Death penalty views in Bangladesh: An exploratory study of capital punishment views among Bangladeshi college students

Although discussion of death penalty has gained momentum in the Bangladeshi news media in recent years, no published study on the death penalty views of Bangladeshi citizens could be found in western literature databases. Based on survey data from a group of Bangladeshi college students, this exploratory study attempted to understand the views of Bangladeshi people toward the death penalty. The data indicate that, although a majority of respondents were in favor of the death penalty, support for or opposition to the death penalty is not a simple yes or no decision; rather, the degree of support or opposition varied from somewhat to very strong. This study also suggests that, in many ways, reasons for supporting or opposing the death penalty in Bangladesh are different than those in the United States.

Gender and cultural differences on death penalty support and views among Indian and U.S. college students

ABSTRACT The death penalty is used as a criminal sanction in 58 out of 193 United Nations countries across the globe, yet the vast majority of research on capital punishment views has been conducted on Western nations, particularly the United States. This study examined the level of death penalty support among college students from both India and the United States. U.S. students expressed greater support for capital punishment compared to their Indian counterparts. In addition, men in both countries were more likely to support the death penalty. The reasons for supporting or opposing capital punishment also varied by gender and nation. Men expressed greater support for reasons of retribution, deterrence, and incapacitation, whereas women were more likely to oppose capital punishment for the reasons of rehabilitation, innocence, and morality. There were differences by nation on rationales to support or oppose capital punishment. Except for incapacitation, Indian students were more polarized in their reasons to support or oppose the death penalty. The findings support the contention that gender and culture play a role in the capital punishment views of the respondents in this study.

Book Review: Controlling Crime: Strategies and TradeoffsPhilipJ. C.LudwigJ.McCraryJ. (Eds.) Controlling Crime: Strategies and TradeoffsChicago, IL: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2011. ix, 624 pp.

the raciallymotivated draggingdeath of James Byrd, Jr. ordered an uneaten feast. Critically analyzing Panetti, Markel, in Part 3, concludes that defendant-centered communicative retribution backfires as a justification for execution, because defendants cannot demonstrate subsequent acceptance of community values, an updated view of retributive punishment theory which Markel thoughtfully contrasts with rehabilitation theory. Panetti required that a competent inmate understand why the community was punishing him. In contrast, Miller parodies the therapeutic potential of capital punishment, invoking medicalization and allegedly redemptive processes. She cites the paradox of medicating Charles Singleton to restore his competence for execution. Discussing Baze v Rees (2008), Dumm asks what can be learned from euthanizing animals, who do not understand death. There the Court authorized the three-drug method of human execution, ironically refusing more humane veterinary practices. Throughout the book, the contributors seek to link their arguments by cross-referencing other authors in the collection. The essays in Who Deserves to Die require us to examine deeply and thought-provokingly why we punish and whom and how we execute, obliging us to ask whether the process is fair and rational, retributive, or utilitarian. At first blush, these themes may seem only impressionistically related, and the question appears as to whether this compendium is artificially contrived or illuminating. How do the various themes concerning the executable subject tie together? Why do themes from Panetti, Singleton, and Baze cases recur throughout the text? Esoteric literary and philosophical references blended with temporal case law could make for an uneven read, yet, the editors and contributors ultimately manage to effectively weave together disparate legal, political, and cultural themes. The book’s primary contribution is its ability to integrate these ideas in deep subtextual and express manners. The collection provides a multilevel understanding of the death penalty’s failure, leading the reader to conclude that our theories of punishment are misguided, ineffective; neither retributive nor utilitarian. The contributors combine multiple perspectives to explain our attempts and failures at constructing an executable subject. Mental illness helps to explain this thesis because of a long history against executing the insane, and new modern retributive theories. It includes prisoners, disturbed at the time of the crime, and prisoners who become incompetent awaiting execution. Historically, these groups were sometimes treated similarly, because prisoners presented with intermittent behavior, or failed to ever improve. Related to mental well-being, is the issue of prisoners who elect to waive death row, withdrawing appeals. Cultural and political rituals like last words and last meals help reflect on how society regulates the manner of death and how inmates reflect on their pending doom. The question of who deserves to die is not ‘‘agnostic,’’ as Sarat suggests. A plea for abolition, rather than a promotion of scientific agnosticism, ultimately lies below the surface of this collection. The ‘‘selection’’ problems are embedded in the death penalty itself, in the process of determining the legality, the culture, and the politics of punishment.

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tial work for their library. Nevertheless, there are a number of problems that reduce the appeal of this book to those involved in corrections. First and foremost, even at its publication, the book was somewhat dated. The most recent article included in the text appeared in print in 2001; since that time, more than 40 articles focusing on correctional boot camps have appeared in print in scientific journals, along with at least two governmental publications and one book about this same topic. In addition, although the authors are well-regarded in this field and much of their work in this area (including the articles presented in this book) is of the highest quality, the book would have been strengthened by including works from other authors around these same topics that were in print prior to the publication of this book. Furthermore, the book also could have been improved by extending the literature review at the beginning of the book. As the book currently stands, most of the literature reviews in the latter chapters are redundant to those in the former chapters and probably could be deleted. Finally, many of the chapters are based on analyses of data used in other chapters. As such, the description of the data in every chapter is often redundant; a simple note at the beginning of some chapters that states that the authors use data in this chapter that was described in previous chapters would probably reduce the book’s length by 20 to 30 pages. Despite the shortcomings outlined above, in 2004, the literature on correctional boot camps appeared in a variety of journals and books, some of which were not easily accessible through traditional search engines. This work consolidates those efforts and gives the reader a handy resource that captures all the essential arguments that surrounded correctional boot camps at the end of the 20th century. Consequently, readers interested in the topic of correctional boot camps will walk away from this book with a more detailed knowledge about correctional boot camps than when they began and, as such, will find the book a worthwhile read.