The assembly of an integrated theoretical framework to assess the legitimacy of prison privatisation policies in England and Wales: an interdisciplinary multidimensional meta-model to evaluate the implications of contracting out imprisonment in Mexico

Abstract

Prison privatisation was recommended to enhance efficiency, economy and innovation as mean to tackle penal crises. Private sector involvement in the prison system was authorized in Mexico without consultation process which would have informed legislators about the wider implications of this penal policy that affect its legitimation.

This research examines key questions: the multidisciplinarity of legitimacy; the extent to which legitimacy of private prisons has been examined; the need for a multidimensional evaluative method of legitimacy; and the legitimating factors to be acknowledged and essential in the prison privatisation debate.

Considering that policymakers, politicians and practitioners ought to be aware of the implications of prison privatisation and that the legitimisation of this penal policy is utmost, the goal of this thesis is to develop a new methodology to assess the legitimacy of private prisons, based on principles extrapolated from various disciplines and related to particular issues.

Private operation of prisons in England and Wales has provided literature that, in addition to a much wider scholarly canon, will be examined to draw lessons for the Mexican case, and to establish principles underpinning particular categories of legitimacy, related to three disciplines: Philosophy, Sociology and Management. Each of these areas is linked to the participants in this phenomenon: governments, society and corporations. The purpose of this research is to add to the debate, which should enter a new stage, since recent developments in the operation of private prisons question their legitimacy. Through the construction of a new evaluative methodology in the form of a meta-model, it contributes to theory and policy about legitimacy and prison privatisation, by providing a guideline to acknowledge the implications and factors of its legitimation, in order to evaluate, re-evaluate or reform this penal policy.

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