Brazil prisoners reading books to shorten their sentences

[Iznogood]

This is not related to electronic books, but I found the idea so original that I take my chances of posting it here nevertheless.

The Brazilian governments have found a new way to let the inmates of crowded prisons shorten their sentence - by reading books, the inmates can shorten their sentence by four days for each book they read.

The goal: educate the prisoners so they leave the prison as better persons.

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 which 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.

Source

[AJ Starr]

That is a very innovative and interesting idea. It reminded me of what I did with my sons (2) when they were young.

They would complain about their bedtime (what kid doesn't) and try to do anything to stay up. So I made a rule:

They could stay up 30 minutes later, IF they spent it reading in bed.

Boy, was that a success. My active sons now settled down and started reading books. And have continued to do so into adulthood (they're in their early 30's)

Books do wonderful things.

AJ

[RainingLemur]

That's actually a fascinating idea. Before I got to the end of the post, I was thinking "how do they know the inmates actually read the books, surely they need to have some kind of test," which was fixed with the essay part.

And, AJ, I may have to use the bedtime thing myself. Maybe my offspring will take to that one.

[Iznogood]

My first train of thought when I read this was that in the "old days", when the governments needed the sentence to pass quicker or to make the penalty harder, was to refuse the prisoner "proper" food and give them just water and bred, and thereby making the penalty shorter.

All of us like to read, of course, but what about notorious criminals? Is reading books an extra penalty that can be used instead of water and bread, or will they actually learn something and become better persons? I've never been in prison, so I have no idea about criminals and what they read

[AlbertaCowboy]

My first thought was "hmmm that's a neat idea". Then I started hoping that they weren't stocking the library with books like "The Great Escape".

[howyoudoin]

Wouldn't the hardened criminals just bully the weaker ones into writing their reports for them?

[hn333]

In a few years Brazil will be overrun by super criminals.

[apbschmitz]

The publishing opportunity here is in the collected literary criticism of Brazilian criminals. Let me know when I can buy a copy.

[QuantumIguana]

Originally Posted by norway1456

My first train of thought when I read this was that in the "old days", when the governments needed the sentence to pass quicker or to make the penalty harder, was to refuse the prisoner "proper" food and give them just water and bred, and thereby making the penalty shorter.

All of us like to read, of course, but what about notorious criminals? Is reading books an extra penalty that can be used instead of water and bread, or will they actually learn something and become better persons? I've never been in prison, so I have no idea about criminals and what they read

It's not a punishment, it's a reward.

[carpetmojo]

Cheaper than TV 's I s'pose ...........

[xg4bx]

it depends what books they are. if its the anarchist cookbook or the turner diaries thats not going to help anyone .

[carpetmojo]

Yeah - but it's all a learning experience, innit ? !

[wyndslash]

it's rather innovative and at least something positive

[Andrew H.]

My state allows prisoners to reduce their sentence by a certain amount for earning various degrees or taking certain educational programs, so the idea is not completely radical. It's also not like they're being overly generous with the credit time; 48 days/year is enough to be an incentive, but they're not giving away the store.

And while I don't particularly think that reading books makes you a better person, a perhaps unstated goal of this scheme is to help with prisoner management: a prison in which all of the prisoners are quietly reading in their cells is an easy prison to run.

Originally Posted by apbschmitz

The publishing opportunity here is in the collected literary criticism of Brazilian criminals. Let me know when I can buy a copy.

For a moment, I also though that this would be an interesting read. Then I realized that there were some pretty notorious works written behind bars.