Penitentiary Governance in the Female Population

Analysis in the state of Nuevo Leon

Abstract

The penitentiary system, since his origins, has been designed for male population, however, the women’s participation in offending behaviour has made unavoidable the construction of penitentiary spaces with a gender perspective, nevertheless, currently, one of the biggest challenges in penitentiary matters in Mexico is the authority’s governability at the centres, thus it needs first of all, keeping penitentiary governability in order to have the conditions required for the feasibility of the last objective of the Penitentiary System: social reinsertion. The current investigation is the product of a comparative analysis with a quantitative method of the governability conditions in the spaces intended for female population placed in detention or internment centres as a disciplinary measure for offences committed in the state of Nuevo León, as a first approximation to the Centro de Prevención y Readaptación Social Topo Chico where they shared a centre designed and built mainly for male population and another subsequent one, once the Centro de Reinserción Social Femenil was created in the state. The analysis considers categories of voice and accountability, stability and absence of violence, effectiveness of authority, regulatory quality, rule of law and control of corruption.