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Combating recidivism and promoting reintegration: Brazil’s experiment with prisons without guards

At the Association for the Protection and Assistance of the Convicted (APAC) of São João del Rei in the eastern Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, there are no guards and no weapons. Only a handful of employees take care of administrative duties and assist the inmates in charge of security. This private prison, subsidised to a large extent by public funds, relies heavily on the trust placed in its male and female inmates – imprisoned for drug trafficking, assault, theft, homicide and rape – and prepares them for their reintegration into working life.

“All I knew about life before was that I wanted to commit crimes, I wanted to beat up other people, I wanted to run away,” recalls Dos Passos, who wears a yellow flower print t-shirt. Today, she no longer thinks of running away. “I have the key, they trust me. I could leave, but I won’t. Because here I’m treated with love,” she says, adding:

“I’m here to make amends. If I run away, I’ll be sent back to another prison, and who will suffer? I will. I committed a crime in society and I have to pay for that crime. I’ll walk away with my head held high.”

The concept behind this seemingly utopian approach, developed by a group of Catholics in 1972, is to humanise prisoners. “When prisoners are treated with violence, they respond to society with violence. By humanising them, we give them the opportunity to make a change in their lives,” explains Denio Marx of the APAC International Study Centre. Members of the association employ the term recuperandos, which can be translated as “recoverers” or “people on the road to recovery”.

Recuperandos wear their own clothes, walk freely in their areas, grow and cook their own food, receive their families on Sundays, clean the premises, inspect their own cells and mediate their own conflicts.

The monthly cost for recuperandos is also lower than for other prisoners: 1,390 reals a month (around €260), according to the APAC International Study Centre, compared with 1,819 reals (around €340) for inmates in the traditional system, according to a 2023 study by the National Secretariat for Penal Policies. APAC also has a lower re-offending rate than the traditional system. In the entrance hall of the São João del Rei prison, the statistics are proudly displayed. Around 14 per cent of recuperandos reoffend, compared with almost 40 per cent of those in the traditional system (2020 figures from the National Justice Council). Based on these results, 68 such detention centres have opened throughout the country. The system is even being exported abroad.