{"id":67638,"date":"2026-04-04T15:57:24","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T15:57:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/brazilian-inmates-reduce-sentences-through-reading"},"modified":"2026-04-04T16:52:01","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T16:52:01","slug":"brazilian-inmates-reduce-sentences-through-reading","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/brazilian-inmates-reduce-sentences-through-reading","title":{"rendered":"Brazilian inmates reduce sentences through reading"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"ap-article-header-tag\"> <strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Lesotho. <\/strong> <\/span>When 33-year-old Brazilian woman Emily de Souza heard about a program allowing her to shave off four days from her prison sentence by reading a book, she seized the opportunity to reconnect with a cherished habit.<\/p>\n<p>Like tens of thousands of detainees across the country \u2014 including former President Jair Bolsonaro \u2014 she signed up for a sentence reduction program that encourages inmates to immerse themselves in literary works in exchange for reducing their sentences by up to 48 days per year.<\/p>\n<p>The possibility of reuniting earlier with her 9-year-old autistic son, who her mother and aunt are looking after, only ramped up her motivation to participate in the project. \u201cOne day is an eternity because it feels like it\u2019s never going to end,\u201d said de Souza, who is incarcerated at the Djanira Dolores de Oliveira Women\u2019s Prison in Rio de Janeiro, which houses approximately 820 female detainees.<\/p>\n<p>Brazil, which has one of the highest per-capita incarceration rates in Latin America, stands out for having one of the most formalized and nationwide systems for sentence remission via reading in the world.<\/p>\n<p>The rapidly growing program, which was first formally regulated in 2012 and then standardized across Brazil in 2021, received renewed attention earlier this year after the Supreme Court authorized Bolsonaro \u2014 who is serving a 27-year sentence for attempting a coup \u2014 to take part.<\/p>\n<p>Andre\u0301ia Oliveira, coordinator of female prisons and LGBTIQ+ inclusion in Rio state\u2019s prisons, said that access to reading programs and schools helps the individual once they have left prison \u2014 but also society.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen we encourage education, ludic activities, knowledge, we return to society someone who can reconnect, respect rules,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Since 2022, literature professor Paulo Roberto Tonani has been conducting workshops in prisons so detainees in Rio can benefit from the measure.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur goal, which underpins everything we do, is to ensure this right. First, the right to lower one\u2019s sentence through reading, to participate in this process, in this project. And second, to truly consider access to literature. We draw inspiration from Antonio Candido when he speaks of literature as a right, and a human right.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"ap-article-footer-note\">Find more news and analyses on <span class=\"ap-highlight-country\">Lesotho<\/span> on the <span class=\"ap-highlight-brand\">Africa Press<\/span> website<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Lesotho. When 33-year-old Brazilian woman Emily de Souza heard about a program allowing her to shave off four days from her prison sentence by reading a book, she seized the opportunity to reconnect with a cherished habit. Like tens of thousands of detainees across the country \u2014 including former President Jair Bolsonaro \u2014 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":67637,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,9],"tags":[5707,580,245,7318],"class_list":["post-67638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-miscellaneous","tag-crime","tag-law","tag-lesotho","tag-penal-code"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Brazilian inmates reduce sentences through reading - Lesotho<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"-article-header-tag&quot;&gt; Africa-Press - Lesotho. 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