Banged up in Brazil? Better break out the books…
A Brazilian prison is reducing sentences for inmates who read more books.
A new government scheme - dubbed Redemption Through Reading - will enable some of the South American country's most notorious criminals to get out of jail up to 48 days early, with four days shaved off a sentence per book read.
But it's not quite as easy as it sounds because prisoners will be tested on their reading skills when they finish a book. They are asked to write an essay about each novel detailing what they have learned from reading it.
The guidelines also state that prisoners - who are allowed to read up to 12 books a year - must "make correct use of paragraphs, be free of corrections, use margins and legible joined-up writing".
