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Comment by ATsch | Hacker News Reader

The program is called "Redemption through Reading” and the officials statements are in similar vain. The implications are pretty clear.

It's only made worse by how only select people can participate. That is on top of Brazil's history of using literacy tests for racial discriminatation. As well as their current, ineffective mass-incarceration policy (now 3rd largest in the world), which as in the US hits indigenous and black south americans harder. I don't expect they'll have a rich corpus of indigenous literature either.

This is why I am very critical, despite reading a book generally hurting nobody. If they truly wanted to keep people out of prison they should end their mass incarceration and improve inequality, not allow select people (who will be almost definitely be disproportionately white) to get out easier.

But then again the head of state is an outspoken fan of the military dictatorship so that does not seem likely.

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“Using literacy tests for racial discrimination”.

Look, this is what bothers me with current “wokeism” trends. With this reasoning, literally any test/course/initiative/whatever will statistically have a slight racial/cultural/religious bias because the world and its population have such biases. So any positive initiative (like this one) which aims at improving lives of everyone (including people of color) will be taken down by a community or another because it’s statistical implication, interpreted in a certain way, will mean it will have a bias.

But the measure itself is NOT racist! It’s discrimination based on literacy, not based on race! I understand race and literacy have some amount of correlation, but unless this correlation is 100%, it means that there are people of color which are literate, and white people which are illiterate. This measure will benefit people of color in a massive way, so why oppose it ?? This makes no sense.

These policies were introduced precisely so that people like you could defend them as "not racist" while still having the same net effect. We have more than ample documentation of it to the point that the only reason to disagree is deliberate ignorance or historical denialism.

Ok so you’re saying: « Making prisoners read books is racist ».

Don’t you realize that this statement is either completely delusional or some form of woke nonsensical Newspeak?

Let me recap: This initiative only has upsides, no downsides. And it has no race distinction. And it benefits people across the board, from people of color to white people. And in absolute terms it will benefit to more people of color than white people (due to the demographics of Brazilian prisons). But you think that statistically it might benefit proportionally slightly more to white people than to people of color, so we should stop this initiative (which again, has no downside for anyone)?

Man I still think of myself as left wing and progressist, but this recent trend of the left, away from universalism, and deep into communautarism makes me feel more and more estranged...

I don’t disagree with your point that reducing mass incarceration should also be pursued though, and is more impactful.

> This initiative only has upsides, no downsides.

Theoretically, it might release someone who the rest of the world would have been better off keeping in jail.

This guy got out of Austrian prison because he could write readably, up to the point of being published and gaining a lot of support from the usual literary luvvies. (I read the book, it was way too self-pitying. Written well, but the stench of "everyone was so mean to me and I am such a victim" was unbearable.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Unterweger

He went on to murder a few more women before being caught and sentenced to life. (Hanged himself the same evening.)

Situation is different here. We talk about reading books not writing them. And of a maximum of reducing by 48days per year, so a 13% reduction of the sentence of people read books continuously, not about releasing people that wouldn’t have been released anyway.

> Situation is different here. We talk about reading books not writing them.

I'm struggling to see why you think that makes a difference.

The only obvious difference is that reading a book is much easier than writing one, which would tend to aggravate the problem of letting people out of jail when they should be in it.

They can only gain 48 days per year, so a 13% reduction in their sentence if they chain-read books. It might release someone slightly earlier, not release someone which wouldn’t have been released anyway.

> Ok so you’re saying: « Making prisoners read books is racist ».

> Don’t you realize that this statement is either completely delusional or some form of woke nonsensical Newspeak?

Even worse, the whole argument seems based on the premise that some races can only learn to read to a lesser extent.

I honestly don't understand. You cannot combat racism by being a racist.

Just to clear up some misconceptions:

> now 3rd largest in the world

It is large and ineffective but it is not the 3rd largest in the world if you look at the incarceration rate per 100k, which is a more reasonable metric. It is the 19th largest [1].

It bugs me somewhat how people often overlook that Brazil is the world's 6th most populous country. Most of Brazil's demographics, no matter what they refer to, will rank near the top when it comes to absolute numbers.

> hits indigenous and black south americans harder. I don't expect they'll have a rich corpus of indigenous literature either

66.7% of the Brazilian prison population are black (includes pardos / mixed race), while 32.3% are white. 54% of the Brazilian population are black, so the incarceration rate is disproportionate for the black population. That is, of course, very unfortunate. However, I don't think the indigenous are particularly affected - only 1390 indigenous Brazilians are in prison in the entire country [4].

A lot of people seem to assume that a significant proportion of the Brazilian population is indigenous. That is not the case. The number of indigenous Brazilians is very small, around 0.47% of the total population. [5]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarcera...

[2] https://g1.globo.com/sp/sao-paulo/noticia/2020/10/19/em-15-a...

[3] https://jornal.usp.br/radio-usp/dados-do-ibge-mostram-que-54...

[4] http://antigo.depen.gov.br/DEPEN/depen-publica-levantamento-...

[5] https://pib.socioambiental.org/pt/Quantos_s%C3%A3o%3F

That is part of the solution, two solutions can co-exist that take different angles. A quick Google search showed that Brazil's literacy rate is roughly 92% and I would like to believe it's something similar in the prison. This program sounds like it can help people make good use of their time while serving their sentence. They should expand this sort of incentive to other forms of education and technical programs.

I'd strongly dispute that this is "part of the solution" because the forces increasing prison population (Bolsenaro ran under "tough on crime" policies) and the ones instituting this program are one and the same. That is the context this has to be seen in, massive expansion of incarceration while making sure a select few get out more easily.

Don’t be fooled into believing the literacy rate statistics provided by the Brazilian government. For more than a decade there’s has been a program of food vouchers for the poor based on school attendance and improving literacy rates.

Guess what happens? No one is failed, everyone is fed.

I imagine the rate is completely different on prison populations. But there are literacy programs aimed at them in Brazil, those aren't on the news because they aren't new. I'm not sure where the GP's revolt comes from.

By the way, there exist technical programs for prison populations in Brazil too, again those aren't in the news because they aren't new.

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