For years, social media users have claimed that prisoners in Brazil can reduce their sentences by reading and reviewing books.
Posts on X, Instagram and Reddit make this claim; Reddit posts on this topic range from 2012 to 2025. Many posts claim the prisoners can reduce their sentence by four days per each book read and reviewed.
This claim is largely true but needs context. As some of the posts accurately note, the literacy program only allows prisoners to reduce their sentences for up to 48 days annually. In other words, a prisoner can read and submit up to 12 book reviews a year to reduce their sentence by four days per book, but any books read or reviewed past that number would not count toward a sentence reduction. Thus, we rate this claim mostly true.
Brazil's remission for reading law
According to the United Nations' Institute for Lifelong Learning, Brazil's Ministry of Justice introduced this sentence reduction law in 2012. The most recent version of the law appeared to be updated in 2021; the text of the current law as of this writing, in Portuguese, is available here.
Per a translation into English using Google Translate — which was then edited and verified by a Snopes reporter fluent in Portuguese — the law says: "Persons deprived of liberty who prove that they have read any literary work, regardless of participation in projects or a prior list of authorized titles, shall have the right to reduce their sentence through reading." The law then goes on to state limitations, however:
V – for each work read, there will be a reduction of 4 (four) days of the sentence, limited, within a period of 12 (twelve) months, to up to 12 (twelve) works effectively read and evaluated and ensuring the possibility of reducing up to 48 (forty-eight) days in each period of 12 (twelve) months.
These books come from the prison's library collection; by law, braille and audiobooks must be available for people with disabilities. The library must also have books in foreign languages to accommodate incarcerated people with different backgrounds.
Prisoners have 21 to 30 days to read the book and another 10 days to write and submit a review, which a "validation committee" — composed of government officials, teachers, librarians, representatives of civil society organizations and other prisoners and their families — evaluates for approval.
Incarcerated people still learning to read and write must be allowed accommodations or assistance to produce their reading reports, such as allowing oral book reviews or expressing thoughts in other ways, like by drawing.
The purpose of the program, per the U.N., is to encourage improved literacy and rehabilitate prisoners. Brazil has one of the largest prison populations globally; estimates of the country's recidivism rate range from 70% to more than 80%.
Snopes reporter Anna Rascouët-Paz contributed to this report.