Prisoners' Reading Habits Help Promote Books... and Early Release

According to a recent survey in Brazil, only 56 per cent of the country's population reads regularly, and the average Brazilian reads less than five books per year.

Meanwhile, a different Brazilian survey revealed that prison inmates read nine times more than the national average. So, following a recommendation from the National Justice Council (CNJ), prisoners from all over Brazil were given the opportunity to not only read a variety of titles but also to produce reviews of those books. Each one of those reviews is then evaluated by a committee and can result in four days of remission of the review author's sentence.

Above: A print ad created from one of the inmates' reviews. 

Now, these synopses and analyses have been brought to life through a project called The Prison Reviews, created by Rio de Janeiro-based agency Artplan, for book publisher Editora Carambaia.

To help support their reading and production of reviews among inmates, and to highlight that prisoners can have a different character than many people imagine, dozens of books from the publisher were donated to the Center for Penitentiary Progression, in Hortolândia, where teacher, Elisande de Lourdes Quintino de Oliveira, conducts reading and critical texts lessons among inmates.

The reviews produced by the prisoners were also used in many advertisement materials for the publisher, appearing as magazine ads, posters in bookstores, social networking posts, radio spots and bookmarks.

Above: The longer documentary about The Prison Reviews initiative.