The current criminal justice literature includes comparative analyses, but few focus on Asian cultures and even fewer compare Muslim countries with the United States. This article attempts to correlate functional similarities and differences between jails in Bangladesh and the United States. Data for this study were taken from Bangladesh population summary reports and a matched sample of American jails from the Bureau of Justice Statistics Jail Census (1990). Findings indicate that jails in the two nations can be classified by the key differentiating variables of crowding and population turnover. American jails sampled processed larger numbers of individuals, but the ratio of admissions to releases was higher in Bangladesh. While crowding was high in the American jails sampled, the crowding rate in Bangladesh was nearly twice as high. The article suggests that future research should include more detailed comparison of the jails in former British colonies to understand how each developed into more professional and civil systems once British rule ended; deeper study of the sub-cultures within the United States and other countries; and visits to jails by members of State and Federal legislatures so they can begin to understand the effects of "truth in sentencing" and "three strikes" statutes on overcrowded and underfunded facilities. Tables, figure, notes, references