Brazil Offers Inmates Reduced Jail Time in Exchange for Reading Books
As part of a new rehabilitation initiative entitled "Redemption through Reading," four federal prisons in Brazil will allow inmate to shave up to 48 days per year off their sentence in exchange for reading books.
Prisoners approved to participate in the program can strike four days off their sentence for every book they read up to 12 books a year. To prove they've read the books, convicts will be required to write book reports that "make correct use of paragraphs, be free of corrections, use margins and legible joined-up writing."
"A person can leave prison more enlightened and with a enlarged vision of the world," Sao Paulo lawyer Andre Kehdi, head of a prison book donation project, told Reuters. "Without doubt they will leave a better person."
