Political Repression Unveiled: Criminological Overview on Enforced Disappearance in Bangladesh

Enforced disappearance in Bangladesh is characterized as a systemic state crime rather than a sporadic human rights violation. Using integrated criminological theory, this paper shows how disappearances function as an organized instrument of political repression. This study asks: How do state crime, organizational routine, conflict, and structural violence theories jointly explain enforced disappearance in Bangladesh as a system of institutionalized state repression? The findings show that enforced disappearance has become integrated into the organizational routines of security agencies such as RAB, DB, and others. Political directives have been operationalized as standard operating procedures within these agencies, with a significant degree of organizational protection. The connection between political parties and the police has created a security apparatus that prioritizes maintaining the balance of power over the rule of law. Temporal patterns also appear to be strategically deployed during elections and mass mobilizations. Victim selection is heavily shaped by structural vulnerability: 89% of victims are from households below the poverty line, 94% lack legal aid, and 78% belong to marginalized communities. The structural mechanisms that sustain systemic impunity include the subordination of the public prosecutor to the executive, the absence of a statutory offence of disappearance, and judicial deference to national security concerns. Case data collected from 2009 to 2025 confirm the theoretical propositions regarding timing and targeting. The article makes an important contribution to criminological theory by showing how authoritarian states systematize illegal violence. It also supports several policy recommendations, including an independent office of the prosecutor, judicial reform, politically independent security sector restructuring, and transitional justice measures such as truth commissions and victim-centered reparations. However, post-revolutionary political openings offer only limited prospects for institutional change.