The defense of (PL) asked the minister of the (Supreme Federal Court) this Thursday (8) to include the former president in the sentence remission program for reading.
Prisoners who read any literary work and submit a review — within the program rules — are entitled to a discount on days in prison. To participate in the program, it is necessary to request judicial authorization. The former president’s defense filed the request for membership today and is awaiting a response.
It is essential that the prisoner has access to authorized works duly cataloged by the prison unit, as well as being assured of the possibility of preparing the required reviews or reports.
The remission of sentences for study is provided for in article 126 of the Criminal Execution Law. The program is regulated by resolution No. 391/2021 of the (National Council of Justice).
Prisoners can choose any literary work from the prison’s library collection to read. The collection can be fed through donations, “any and all censorship of literary, religious, philosophical or scientific works being prohibited”, says the CNJ rule.
The Federal District Education Department has a specific program for remission of sentences. The Remission of Sentence for Reading requires pre-selected works to be read — which can be consulted here. This requirement, however, is in line with the CNJ resolution, which guarantees the possibility of redemption by reading any work from the collection chosen by the prisoner.
After authorization from the Court to join the redemption, prisoners have 21 to 30 days to read the chosen book. Afterwards, the deadline for submitting the reading report is 10 days. The review will be evaluated by a committee.
Each work read corresponds to the redemption of four days of sentence. Participants can present a review of up to 12 books per year. In other words, it is possible to reduce the sentence by up to 48 days within a 12-month period.
