Dateline: Oct 16

Dateline cameras this week showcase a unique prison in Brazil using compassion and freedom to reform hardened criminals, as an alternative to harsh punishment.

Dateline reporter Evan Williams spends one week inside an APAC prison (Association for Protection and Assistance of Convicts) in São João Del Rei, where inmates are given the responsibility of running the facility and even hold the keys.

Convicted murderer and drug trafficker Romulo told Evan that the prison provided an opportunity to become a better person. “I was sentenced to jail for 24 years and six months and I have the keys to the front door. If I wanted to run away I could do it. But I want to be here, to rehabilitate and to return to society”.

APAC prisoners all have jobs, from tending and butchering livestock, to counselling addicts. They are allowed regular contact with their families and are expected to study, exercise and pray.

Dateline also investigates the other side of life behind bars, by visiting a nearby mainstream prison, where overcrowding, punishment and violence are everyday occurrences

With close to 700,000 prisoners, Brazil has the 3rd highest prison population in the world, beaten only by US and China, with a sky-high recidivism rate of 70%. Overcrowding, poor conditions and gang violence are the catalyst for the riots that have become synonymous with mainstream Brazilian prisons. In the past two years, close to 500 prison inmates were killed in Brazil’s penal system.

APAC inmate Romulo was originally sentenced to 24 years in a mainstream prison. “If you are not a criminal when you go in, you will be when you come out”, he tells Dateline.

Last year, 11 years into his sentence, a judge decided to give Romulo a chance and sent him to an APAC prison. “APAC shows you how to be a dignified and honest person. If I stayed in the [mainstream] prison system all this time, I think that I would be a monster today”, he adds.

APAC prisons are a ray of hope not only for the prisoners, but even for the prison authorities.

The Head Prison Officer at the regional prison of São João Del Rei told Dateline, “Nowadays, APAC is the system that helps us a lot. Why? Because every inmate who aims to go to APAC has to have a good behaviour here, if he doesn’t have a good behaviour here, he doesn’t have the privilege of going to APAC.”

But there are a few who feel APAC is not a perfect reform model.

Criminal lawyer Barbara Furtado, has thoroughly studied the APAC system, and is concerned about its emphasis on faith. “They are using the law to force these people to be morally perfect”, she tells Dateline. “You have to have a religion. You have to pray before you eat, sleep, and as soon as you wake up. So, they are not so open. APAC is a light in the medieval system. They are not a solution, they are a start.”

A solution or not, APAC prisons are gaining popularity in Brazil. Could this alternative be the model for reforming prisoners around the globe?

Tuesday, October 16 at 9.30pm on SBS.