Unlike many jurisdictions where reading remains incidental to incarceration, Brazil integrates it directly into sentence-remission calculations.

Remission through reading (remição de pena pela leitura) is a practice within Brazil’s prison system that allows incarcerated individuals to reduce their sentences by reading books and submitting written reviews. For each approved review, four days are deducted from the sentence, up to a maximum of 12 books per year (48 days). Participation typically involves selecting a book from the prison library, completing the reading over a defined period, and producing a written summary or analysis demonstrating comprehension and critical thought. Submissions are assessed by a committee composed of educators, prison staff, or authorized volunteers before the reduction is applied.

Building on Brazil’s legal provisions for educational sentence remission, reading was formally included around 2012, with subsequent national and state guidance promoting standardized implementation.

Goals Beyond Reducing Days

At first glance, the program functions as a sentence-reduction mechanism; however, its underlying objectives extend well beyond this purpose:

1. Literacy and Cognitive Empowerment

Brazil’s prison population includes a large share of individuals with limited formal education and relatively low literacy levels. One stated aim of the remission-through-reading policy is to address these challenges by promoting literacy and intellectual development, providing access to new knowledge, and encouraging critical thinking and analytical skills.

2. Psychological Escape and Transformation

Some participants and advocates note that reading offers inmates a mental break from the repetitive routine of prison life and encourages reflection and intellectual growth. The program is intended to foster self-awareness, empathy, and wider cultural and educational involvement; however, its psychological effects have not been systematically evaluated.

3. Civic Connection

Some scholars argue that reading can connect incarcerated individuals to broader cultural and civic life, fostering educational inclusion and social belonging, though this reflects interpretation rather than systematic evidence.

Outcomes and Challenges

Positive effects:

  • In 2024, nearly 300,000 requests for sentence reduction through reading were submitted nationwide, with notable growth in states such as Amazonas and Alagoas.
  • Some participants and advocates report benefits such as greater engagement with ideas, increased reflection, and interest in education, though systematic evaluation of outcomes like emotional stability or communication is limited.
  • Local initiatives, including programs in Paraná, have observed lower recidivism or positive behavioral changes, but these findings are based on limited, context-specific data rather than national studies.

Challenges and limitations:

  • Only a small share of the prison population benefits; one study found that reading-based remission accounted for roughly 1% of total days reduced in recent years.
  • Many prisons either lack libraries or have collections that are insufficient or outdated.
  • A significant number of prisoners have low literacy or incomplete education, which limits their ability to participate effectively without additional support.
  • Judicial approval of reading reports is not always consistent, creating administrative and procedural obstacles.

Insights and Implications

Taken together, the program’s goals, outcomes, and constraints raise broader questions about the role of knowledge in shaping ethical conduct. One such question is whether knowledge, on its own, can guide moral behavior. Knowledge does not automatically shape a person’s moral compass. As moral understanding can exist independently of formal education, illiteracy by itself does not predispose individuals to criminal or unethical behavior.

Similar assumptions shape broader social thinking. Widespread beliefs about the connection between poverty and criminality can distort understanding, as can claims that ignorance directly causes economic failure or unemployment. Although poverty and economic breakdown can create environments in which survival becomes the dominant concern, they are not, in themselves, the root cause of unethical behavior.

Ethical conduct is shaped primarily by belief systems, values, and the norms that govern power and responsibility, rather than by intellectual capacity alone. History repeatedly demonstrates this distinction: intellectual brilliance has not prevented grave wrongdoing, as illustrated by individuals such as Edmund Kemper (IQ 145) and Rodney Alcala (IQ 139).

At a broader, structural level, the same pattern persists. Many of the most destructive decisions affecting societies and nations have been made not by the uneducated, but by highly educated individuals occupying positions of political and economic power. As Aesop observed, “We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.”

Overall, these realities suggest that neither education nor intelligence is a reliable measure of moral restraint. What ultimately governs ethical behavior is not what one knows, but the values one adopts, and the systems that reward or restrain their exercise.