Senate approves bill on prison sentence remission for studying

 

Conectas, together with the Sou da Paz Institute and the Pastoral Carcerária, supported the approval of the bill that will encourage access to education for Brazil’s prison population.

 

Bill No. 265/2006 approved on June 8,2011 by the Senate (which alters articles 126, 129 and 130 of Brazil’s Prison Law) institutes the remission of sentences for prisoners who study. In other words, the possibility for inmates to knock a day off their sentences for every 12 hours they spend studying (over a period of three days).

 

In Brazil, more than half the prison population has not completed elementary education. According to the federal government’s INFOPEN statistics, 273,040 prisoners – 63.50% of the total – do not have this level of schooling and, of these, 25,319 are illiterate.

 

The approval of this bill, enabling all prisoners – both remand and convicted – to have access to education and earn remission for studying, will help promote access to education for the country’s prison population.

 

Conectas, which together with the Pastoral Carcerária and Instituto Sou da Paz had supported the approval of the bill, welcomes the result.

 

Read here the text of the bill approved in the Senate, which will now be signed into law by the Brazilian President.