Sagat B, rapper and former inmate, is today a member of the Brazilian Academy of Prison Letters. Photo by Marcelo Costa Braga, used with permission

This article, written by Rafael Ciscati, was originally published on the Brasil de Direitos website on July 3, 2025. An edited version is republished on Global Voices under a partnership agreement.

It was the beginning of the 2010s, and Sagat B was serving time at a prison unit called Instituto Penal Vicente Piragibe in Rio de Janeiro, when he joined a project aimed at encouraging reading and writing within jail.

The project was developed by a non-governmental organization and included activities such as music classes and a sort of book club for a group of no more than seven inmates. Sagat, who had never finished reading a book in his entire life, was hooked by the proposal. After a week, he ran through the first book: ‘‘The Alienist’’ (1882), a Brazilian classic written by Machado de Assis (1839–1908).

Today, a free man, he has published his own memoir. In ‘‘The Criminal Who Became An Artist’’ (“O Bandido que virou artista,” 2022), Sagat B reflects on his life, and the message is significant: if it weren’t for the incentive to write, which he found while in prison, his path would be different. “Literature was essential to my resocialization,” he says.

That is why he follows closely and worries about the ongoing debate at the Federal Supreme Court (Supremo Tribunal Federal, STF) on the possibility of inmates being allowed to publish books.

The lawsuit that led to it originated in a case from 2019. An inmate from Campo Grande Federal Penitentiary, in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul, attempted to publish a book of over 1,000 pages, written while he was serving his sentence. The prison director didn’t authorize it. At the time, according to information presented before the court by the inmate's defense team, the director claimed he feared the manuscript could include encoded messages, addressed to criminal organizations. The material was subjected to analysis by the prison’s pedagogic team for three years.

The case was taken to court, which ultimately ruled in agreement with the director’s decision. Judges from the Federal Regional Court of the Fifth Region stated that the decision was supported by the Federal Prison System Handbook, a document that establishes procedures to be followed in maximum-security prisons.

In article 161, the handbook’s text says that: “Inmates are allowed to have their own literary production, such as writing biographies, poems, tales or other types, once it is authorised by the Federal Penitentiary’s administration, with the removal of the material or its dissemination being prohibited.”

With the first federal penitentiaries opening in 2006, the system hosts inmates who are deemed dangerous, in general, due to their links with criminal gangs. The handbook, which outlines procedures to be followed in these units, also establishes a series of restrictions.

“It is very focused on security and discipline,” says attorney Cátia Kim, general program coordinator at the Land, Work and Citizenship Institute (Instituto Terra Trabalho e Cidadania, ITTC).

To publish or not publish

Maximum security federal penitentiary in Brasília. Photo by Marcelo Camargo/Agência Brasil, used with permission.

Except for what the handbook states, no law or rule in Brazil forbids an inmate serving time from publishing what they write, according to experts consulted by Brasil de Direitos. “You start, therefore, from the basic principle that, if there is no prohibition, the practice is allowed,” states Kim.

This is the point being discussed at the Supreme Court: justices will decide if the restriction respects or not the Federal Constitution. For the defense representatives of the inmate/writer, this is a case of prior censorship, where the right of the author to free speech wasn’t respected.

Even if the case involves a person within the federal prison system, the justices’ ruling shall be extended to those serving time in regular prison units, under the state governments’ management.

State secretaries of penitentiary administration usually define rules that determine the daily lives of inmates in these units, notes Kim. “Decisions such as this one  — regarding authorizing or not the publication of a book — are taken on a more executive level.”

As soon as he learned about the imbroglio at the Supreme Court, Sagat B sent a message to his peer Edson Souza Júnior. A lawyer and former inmate, like him, Souza is one of the members of the Brazilian Academy of Prison Letters (Academia Brasileira de Letras do Cárcere, ABLC).

Founded in 2024, the institution gathers inmates and former prisoners who have at least one published book. Sagat B and Souza, hold seats number 2 and 18, respectively.

Souza explains that the academy’s goal is “to defend literary production by inmates and former inmates,” adding that literature “is perhaps the sole instrument for resocialization available today.”

When he received Sagat B’s message, Souza had already learned about the lawsuit at the Supreme Court, and was preparing a petition requesting the academy to be included as “friend of the Court” (amicus curiae) — meaning, an entity capable of bringing important information for the suit. The request is still under consideration. If granted, the ABLC will defend before the Supreme Court inmates’ rights to have their writings published.

The Academy

The idea of creating an academy came from retired Judge Siro Darlan, who saw literature as a tool for transformation. The institution doesn't have a physical space; its members usually meet in video calls and participate in literary events in and out of prisons throughout Brazil.

As with the Brazilian Academy of Letters, members of the ABLC are elected by the other members. After that, they are selected to occupy chairs honoring noteworthy people who were in prison, including Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821–1881), former Uruguayan president José ‘‘Pepe’’ Mujica (1935–2025) or the Brazilian modernist writer Patrícia Galvão, Pagu (1910–1962), a member of the Communist Party, imprisoned for taking part of a dockers’ strike in Santos port. Another communist writer, Jorge Amado (1912–2001), was arrested three times. Chair number 8 is named after him.

The ‘‘immortal’’ on Chair Number 1, named after writer Graciliano Ramos (1892–1953), is Márcio Nepomuceno, known as Marcinho VP, one of the leaders of the Red Command (Comando Vermelho), a major criminal organization in Brazil. Nepomuceno has four published books.

In prison since 1996, Nepomuceno also serves time within the federal system. Since 2024, he has been incarcerated at Campo Grande Penitentiary, which denied publishing rights to the inmate, which led to the Supreme Court discussion.

Souza says the difference between the two cases reveals how arbitrary the system can be. “No matter what the Handbook says, in practice, who decides if a person can publish or not is the director, and they don't need to justify their decision.”

The ban on publishing contradicts a resolution from 2021 by the National Council of Justice (CNJ), which promotes reading and participating in educational activities in exchange for a reduction in sentenced time. Projects such as these are still rare.

“Some states, such as São Paulo, Paraná, Espírito Santo and Paraíba, have been organizing literary contests, promoting the value of writing for the prison population,” says Marina Dias, executive director of the Defense Institute for Defense Rights (Instituto de Defesa dos Direitos de Defesa, IDDD). Others, she says, have prohibited the publishing of writings by inmates. “However, if one of the most powerful objectives of writing is to share, what is the purpose of encouraging this exercise under such conditions? Writing is a way of existing in this world. To deny the publication of something written is a form of erasure of people in prison.”

Dias notes that the Penal Execution Law (Lei de Execução Penal) guarantees to inmates the right to culture and education; therefore, it doesn't make sense to try to control what an inmate can and cannot write. “The official reason, the one saying the prohibition seeks maintenance of discipline and safety of penitentiaries, seems an excuse to keep a secrecy policy about what happens inside prisons.”

Members of the ABLC argue that the solution lies in respecting the right to freedom of expression.

“After all, a prison sentence doesn’t strip the person of other fundamental rights,” claims Souza. He acknowledges that, before publishing, texts can be submitted to pedagogical teams from the prison units. “But it’s necessary to establish a time limit to this analysis, and that the inmate’ lawyers can have access to it,” he says.

Sagat B, on the other hand, dreams further than that. He wishes to see a library composed only of books written by people who had been in prison: “Books that can talk about the reality inside prisons. If books like that existed, the book club in Vicente Piragibe wouldn’t have only seven participants. It would be more than 30,” he says, remembering the place where he became a reader.