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APAC: Brazil’s Restorative Justice Prisons

by Lorenn

On July 5 & 6, 2010, I visited two APAC prisons (Associacao de Protecao e Assistencia aos Condenados in English translated as: Association for Protection and Assistance of Convicts) in the city of Itauna, state of Minas Gerias, Brazil. The original APAC prison, which was in San Paulo, Brazil was reportedly the “first contemporary prison” to totally apply a faith-based approach to all parts of prison administration. (See: “Prison Religion: Faith Based reform and the Constitution”, Sullivan, 2009, emphasis in the original, p. 247).

I went to Brazil to learn how restorative justice is applied there, and visited the Itauna prisons at the suggestion of Lynette Parker who works with Dan Van Ness. “This is like no other prison I’ve been in. It focuses on ‘human valorization’ and has been incorporating more restorative elements over the years,” she said. Dan’s book, Crime and Its Impact on Victims, was one of the first that I read about restorative justice. His personal story of how restorative justice helped him inspired me years ago.

I spent a night and a half a day at the APAC Itauna men’s prison, and also visited the women’s APAC prison across town. Both prisons house people convicted for felonies from the most serious to less serious including drug offenses. The men’s prison has two rooms in the administrative wing of the prison for visitors. Even more amazing than being allowed to spend the night at a prison and eat meals with incarcerated people, is that APAC prisons have no guards, instead the people incarcerated have keys to the prison. APAC  prisons also have a recidivism rate that is remarkably low, and has been reported below 5%.

The atmosphere of the Itauna APAC prisons is different from the many others that I have visited on five different continents. While some prisons are labeled “correctional” institutions, like Hawai’i state prisons, APAC prisons are truly places of rehabilitation. They are not like most prisons including the state of Hawai’i, which sadly teach many people how to be better criminals through inhumane and barbaric environments (See: The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil, Zimbardo, 2008, which I wrote a blog about: http://www.lorennwalker.com/blog/?p=57)

APAC’s approach is opposite to most prisons. Instead of making the people incarcerated in them feel bad, guilty, and like failures, APAC works to make people feel worthy, respected, and able to restore their lives. APAC gives people hope that they can contribute something to help others and that they can be of service in some way, no matter what their situation.

APAC’s restorative approach begins with the name it uses to refer to the people who live in these prisons. Instead of calling the people inmates or prisoners, APAC calls the recuperandos because they are “people in the process of rehabilitation.” The late Insoo Kim Berg, co-founder of solution-focused brief therapy, would have loved this name recuperandos because she recognized the importance of language and how our labels influence behavior and our experiences.

APAC began in San Paulo, Brazil about 35 years ago with lawyer and serious Catholic, Dr. Mario Ottoboni who worked with others in the community that were dismayed by the prison system and its penchant for turning out criminals instead of rehabilitated people.

My experience at APAC prisons has also made me more committed to using kindness and compassion rather than anger and resentment for dealing with criminal behavior and the harm that it causes.

There is a lot more to be said about APAC’s approach and I am working on a paper that I hope to complete by the end of the year. It will explore how some of APAC’s principals might be applied without being driven by a religion. As one person who works in the Hawai’i prison said basically:  “Faith-based and spirituality can mean that we have faith in our own, and in other people’s potential to do good. It doesn’t require we be any specific religion to have faith and spirituality.”

22 thoughts on “APAC: Brazil’s Restorative Justice Prisons”

  1. In the United States, in Pennsylvania state prisons, a woman named Marie Hamilton implemented programs over a 33 year period to do what the Brazilian APAC prisons do: “make people feel worthy, respected, and able to restore their lives and give them hope that they can contribute something to help others and that they can be of service in some way, no matter what their situation.” Marie Hamilton helped incarcerated men & women in PA to start an annual statewide charity event to raise money to help at-risk children – PA prisoners have since raised over a quarter of a million to benefit at-risk youth through this event; she created a program for people in the community to create Christmas cards for prisoners every year to let them know they are loved; these are just a few of the programs she created. For more information on how these types of programs were implemented in Pennsylvania (and an incredible & inspiring story of the difference that offering respect and compassion can make), read: Grace Goes to Prison: An Inspiring Story of Hope & Humanity (available through Amazon.com).

  3. Thanks for the Ode Magazine link and the link to the CentrePeace website, Lorenn. As you’ve probably figured out, I was the one who wrote the book about Marie Hamilton’s work – she’s inspired me so much, I just can’t stop telling people about her and CentrePeace, the RJ-based organization she founded. Sales of the book, Grace Goes to Prison, benefit the continuing RJ work of CentrePeace. The book was published through a tiny non-profit church-based publishing house with few resources to get her story out there to the big wide world – so I’ve been looking for creative ways to spread the word.
    Let me know if you have any advice about other ways you’re aware of to let people know about Marie Hamilton, CentrePeace and Grace Goes to Prison.

  4. Hi Melanie, It looks like a good book and I will try to read it in the next few months and will leave another comment after I do. Thank you again for posting information about it and for all your hard work in writing it! Aloha, Lorenn

  5. Pingback:   Lawyers promote restorative justice & therapeutic jurisprudence by Restorative Justice & Other Public Health Approaches for Healing

  6. I am a 66 year old retired mechanical/electrical engineer seeking to do volunteer work in Matto Grosso. In reading of the prison system APAC to be more pricise; I feel that I would ba an assett.
    I have preached in various prisons in Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Florida. I have also taught electricity, including motors. generators and their repair at Delgado Community College, New Orleans, La. My trade is Marine Mechanical/Electrical inclusive of vessels and bridges. Should you feel that this note would warrant an interview, please, contact me.

  7. Hi Lorenn,

    Thank for this article! It inspired me to write my college thesis on APAC prisons, which I completed in May. While staying with my family in Brasil I visited 5 APAC prisons. I just re-read your piece and noted that at the end you stated you were working on a paper. I would love to read your work if possible.

    Thanks so much,

    Lyla

  10. Dear Lorenn,

    I just started doing some research on restorative Justice in Brasil and came across this article and your report on your visit of that APAC-Prison, that touched my deeply. I am coming to Brasil in october, since my brother will marry a wonderful brasilian woman near Belo Horizonte – I would love to visit an APAC-prison while I am in the country. Do you have any idea who I could contact? I wrote an email to AVSI – but did not get a reply yet.

    Looking forward to hearing from you.

    Warm regards,
    Clivia

  11. I watched a TV program this week about a Brazilian APAC prison and I was so touched by the goodness and the desire to be a better person that resides in most people no matter how how they have strayed from the straight and narrow to commit serious crimes. You can’t fight fire with fire and this method of rehabilitation is the be lauded. Congratulations Brazil!!!!

  12. Hi, I’m looking for the author of this article.
    I just came back from Brazil. I’m making a film on APAC and Restorative Justice in the U.S.

    I have ten minutes trailer. So many people don’t know about APAC and that APAC there are currently 23 APAC facilities in as many countries around the world, including Chile, Germany, Colombia, Costa Rica, and Mexico.
    We need to work together to promote this extraordinary and successful method in U.S.

  13. Hello there! Thanks for this excellent piece. I am a criminologist working for a planning and design firm specialized in (rehabilitative) prison architecture. For years I have been doing research on evidence-based design, and came across the APAC model a while ago. I submitted a paper to be presented at the Annual Conference of the International Corrections and Prison Association (ICPA) to be held in Buenos Aires at the end of October, this year. I will be covering the Costa Rica model, and a colleague of mine will cover the Dominican Republic model. I was wondering if anyone here would be interested in attending the conference (on your own means, sorry) and being part of our panel to present your work. If anyone in this blog is interested, please contact me at: mlopez@CGLcompanies.com THANK YOU!

    1. Wow Josh thank you for sharing your story which is SO inspiring! It’s wonderful you are going to follow your heart now and do work more meaningful to you. It’s great you are using your past challenges that you remarkably survived to help others. I love peer education which is all about people helping others who have suffered similar hardships. No person on the planet escapes without any hardship and suffering. Finding how we can use our experiences to help others helps ourselves and it helps build solid communities❤️

  15. I loved it when I watched it on YouTube I think it’s a very very special place I send all my prayers and blessings to everyone that gets a chance to make it there but the thing about the lawyer saying about they have to pray praying is a very essential part of Rehabilitation and I do know because I’ve been in recovery for the last five years from heroin and crack cocaine and I really really had to pray my way through it

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