A unique way to get something from a prisoner

A lot of jails and prisons have trustees, prisoners who can earn shorter sentences who doing certain tasks (food service, cleaning, etc). Well this is something unique.

Inmates at Brazil prison pedal for electricity - and their freedom

SANTA RITA DO SAPUCAI, Brazil — Brazilian inmate Ronaldo da Silva hops on a bicycle and pedals furiously, clocking up several miles before slowing down and jumping off.

Silva hasn't gotten far, in fact not an inch. He's still inside the medium-security prison where he's serving a 5.5-year sentence for holding up a bakery, standing next to a stationary bike.

But he did move a bit closer to freedom. Silva is part of an innovative program that allows inmates at a prison in Brazil's southeastern Minas Gerais state to reduce their sentences in exchange for generating power to help illuminate the town at night.

By pedaling the prison's stationary bikes, the inmates charge a battery that's used to power 10 street lamps along the town's riverside promenade. For every three eight-hour days they spend on the bikes, Silva and the voluntary program's other participants get one day shaved off their sentences.

It is one of several new projects being implemented across Brazil, including literacy and book-reading programs, all aimed at thinning out notoriously overcrowded prisons and cutting down on recidivism by helping restore inmates' sense of self-worth. Lambasted by critics as too soft on criminals, such initiatives are seen by their defenders as effective ways of breaking the cycle of violence that reigns in the country's penitentiaries.

"We used to spend all day locked up in our cells, only seeing the sun for two hours a day," said 38-year-old Silva, whose missing front teeth speak to a life of hardships and privation. "Now we're out in the fresh air, generating electricity for the town and at the same time we're winning our freedom."

Silva has already pedaled off 9 pounds — and 20 days from his sentence.

Clad in red, prison-issue sweat pants and matching T-shirts, he and his fellow cyclists hit the bikes at around nine in the morning and ride until about 5 p.m., with breaks for lunch and an afternoon snack...

...The two month-old program is the brainchild of the town's judge, Jose Henrique Mallmann, who said he got the idea from a story he read on the Internet about gyms in the United States where electricity is generated by the exercise bikes...

Keeps them from coming back, generates power for the prison and keeps them too tired to do anything stupid (like fighting), what the hell, sounds good to me.