Brazil will offer inmates in its crowded federal penitentiary system a novel way to shorten their sentences: four days less for every book they read.

　　Inmates in four federal prisons holding some of Brazil's most notorious criminals will be able to read up to 12 works of literature, philosophy, science or classics to trim a maximum 48 days off their sentence each year, the government announced.

　　Prisoners will have up to four weeks to read each book and write an essay which must "make correct use of paragraphs, be free of corrections, use margins and legible joined-up writing," said the notice published on Monday in the official gazette.

　　A special panel will decide which inmates are eligible to participate in the program dubbed "Redemption through Reading".

　　"A person can leave prison more enlightened and with a enlarged vision of the world," said Sao Paulo lawyer Andre Kehdi, who heads a book donation project for prisons. "Without doubt they will leave a better person," he said.

　　【新聞快訊】

　　據路透社6月25日報道，為了緩解監獄系統擁擠現狀，巴西當局出臺了幫助囚犯縮減刑期的新方式，即讀書減刑，每讀一本書可減刑4天。

　　巴西政府宣稱，被關押在巴西四所聯邦監獄中的囚犯可以通過讀文學名著、哲學、科學或經典書籍減刑。每年最多可讀12本書，每本書可減刑4天，一年最多可減刑48天。囚犯每本書最多可讀四週，並根據所讀書籍寫下一篇文章，文章要求正確使用段落，清晰連貫。

　　一個特別委員會將決定哪些囚犯具備參加這一名為“通過閱讀救贖”計劃的資格。向巴西監獄捐書的聖保羅律師安德烈 科赫迪説：“一個人可以帶著更卓絕的見識、更寬廣的視野離開監獄。無疑，他們將變成更好的人。”

　　來源：滬江英語