When 33-year-old Brazilian Emily de Souza heard about a program that would allow her to reduce her prison sentence by four days by reading a book, she seized the opportunity to reconnect with a habit that was dear to her.
Like tens of thousands of prisoners across the country — including former president Jair Bolsonaro — she signed up for a sentence reduction program that encourages inmates to immerse themselves in literary works in exchange for a sentence reduction of up to 48 days per year.
The possibility of seeing her 9-year-old autistic son sooner, who is cared for by his mother and aunt, only strengthened her motivation to participate in the project.
One day feels like an eternity, because it feels like it will never end," said Ms. de Souza, who is incarcerated at the Djanira Dolores de Oliveira women's prison in Rio de Janeiro, which houses approximately 820 inmates.
Brazil, which has one of the highest incarceration rates per capita in Latin America, stands out for one of the most formalized and extensive reading-based sentence reduction systems in the world. This rapidly expanding program, which was first officially regulated in 2012 and then standardized nationwide in 2021, received renewed attention earlier this year after the Supreme Court allowed Bolsonaro—who is serving a 27-year sentence for an attempted coup—to participate.
Andréia Oliveira, coordinator of women's prisons and LGBTIQ+ inclusion in Rio de Janeiro state prisons, stated that access to reading programs and schooling helps inmates not only after they leave prison but also in society. "When we encourage education, recreational activities, and the acquisition of knowledge, we return to society a person capable of reintegrating and respecting the rules," she said.
Since 2022, Paulo Roberto Tonani, a literature professor, has been running workshops in prisons so that inmates in Rio can benefit from this measure.
“Our objective, which underpins everything we do, is to guarantee this right. Firstly, the right to reduce one's sentence through reading, to participate in this process, in this project. And secondly, to truly take into account access to literature. We are inspired by Antonio Candido when he speaks of literature as a right, and a human right.”
