This research produced by Ação Educativa in partnership with the Prison Pastoral, within the framework of the Grupo de Educação nas Prisões, represents an opportunity to contribute to the implementation of the National Prison Education Directives and the strengthening of the human rights agenda in the prison system of São Paulo.
These challenges face a lot of resistance from conservative sectors of the State and society, who believes the solution for crime is only the increase of public security and imprisonment, and a prison model that denies rights and the possibility of “other futures” for the prison population.
Education, besides being a fundamental human right of every person, represents the belief on the construction of a new prison model (that surpasses a chaotic picture which violates rights and is marked by unworthy conditions that is the present Brazilian penitentiary reality). A new model attuned to the challenges of a democratic society committed to affirming the rights of the prison population.
We hope that the results of this research will contribute to make explicit the urgent need for large investments in a youth and adult education policy in the prison units of São Paulo that respond to the great educational demand of the prison population and promote actions and reflections in other Brazilian states for the human right to the education of men and women in sites of deprivation of liberty.