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Abstract
Remição pela Leitura, or in English "Redemption through Reading," is a prison education program unlike any other. The unique reading-incentive program, which serves the incarcerated population of Brazil, grants its participants time off from their prison sentences for reading and reporting on works of literature. This study, conducted at the program's origin state, Paraná, employs the exploratory case study method to uncover some of the program's successes and limitations. Brazil's approach to reading and information access starkly contrasts with the United States, where reports estimate that tens of thousands of books are banned from prisons each year. Arbitrary barriers to reading are common practice in U.S. correctional facilities, partially due to deferential law that allows prison employees to control censorship judgments.
Conversely, in Brazil, prisoners' right to read and freedom from censorship is codified into law. This article examines the Penitentiary Department of Paraná's efforts to educate and provide freedom of information.
Keywords: Reading, Prison, Education, Redemption, Censorship, Books.
The criminalization of books is at its 20-year peak, with the American Library Association reporting 1,269 book bans from libraries and schools in 2022" (Alter & Harris, 2023). Book censorship disproportionately impacts marginalized populations, as their lived experiences are often the subjects of banned books. In the United States, no institution is more culpable of unjust book-banning processes than the prison system. Books are often treated as contraband, an injustice the federal government enables by deferring its censorship policy decisions to individual prison employees (Cauley, 2020). U.S. law establishes that the warden may not reject a publication solely because its content is religious, philosophical, political, social, or sexual or because its content is unpopular or repugnant (C.ER, 1979). Although it claims protection against these types of discrimination, ban decisions often go unchecked. Individual correctional facilities delegate censorship responsibility differently, sometimes even assigning the task of book determinations to mail-room attendants or entry-level officials (PEN America, 2019, p. 1). As a result of arbitrary reasoning and poor reporting from prison employees, it is impossible to account for every banned book title. However, tens of thousands of censored titles are recorded from various correctional facilities across the United States. Consequently, literature on civil rights and race is inordinately subject to bans, including bans on texts like...