Prisoners in Brazil: Redemption through Reading

Brazilian prisoners given novel way to reduce their sentence | World news | guardian.co.uk.

And if you need any more reasons for supporting the benefits of reading, here’s an unlikely but interesting one: a prison reading program called “Redemption through Reading”. Simple formula – read a book, write an essay, and get four days reduced prison time. I rather like it. Here’s the first part of the brief report; find the rest at the link above.

Brazil will offer inmates in its crowded federal penitentiary system a new way to shorten their sentences: a reduction of four days for every book they read.

Inmates in four federal prisons holding some of Brazil’s most notorious criminals will be able to read up to 12 works of literature, philosophy, science or classics to trim a maximum 48 days off their sentence each year, the government announced.

Prisoners will have up to four weeks to read each book and write an essay that must “make correct use of paragraphs, be free of corrections, use margins and legible joined-up writing”, said the notice published on Monday in the official gazette.