巴西监狱系统近期推出一项减刑新规，读一本书减四天刑。这项新规将在巴西四所联邦监狱实行，服刑人员如果能在一年内读完12本文学、哲学、科学或者经典类著作，便可获得最高48天的减刑。

Brazil will offer inmates¹ in its crowded federal penitentiary²（监狱） 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 margins³ and legible（清晰的） joined-up writing," said the notice published on Monday in the official gazette（报纸） .

A special panel will decide which inmates are eligible⁴ to participate in the program dubbed⁵ "Redemption through Reading".

"A person can leave prison more enlightened and with an 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.