Iapen inmates participate in Christmas programming – News of Brazil

Elen Costa
From the Editor

In December, the Amapá Penitentiary Administration Institute (Iapen) held several events with inmates to celebrate Christmas. The program includes plays, cantatas, religious events and collective weddings.

For the management of the state prison system, the events promote joy, not only for visitors, but also for the inmates themselves, in addition to helping with security, since the program strengthens ties between inmates and breaks any type of misunderstanding problem. that may have occurred during the year.

“It is a very special period for the institute and we seek to promote these actions to celebrate this end-of-year celebration for the inmates. We made a Christmas carol with the presentation of the re-educated children who comply with security measures at the Novo Horizonte Custody Center – CCNH. They put on a theatrical presentation for visitors and servers, reenacting the Birth of Jesus. This is extremely important, because these prisoners are those who have some type of psychological disorder, and this ends up helping with their treatment and work, because it ends up taking them out of idleness”pondered the CEO of Iapen, delegate Luiz Carlos Gomes Júnior.

Christmas cantatas were also performed with inmates of the women’s penitentiary complex and one with prisoners from the public security system serving sentences at the CCNH.

For the program to take place, the inmates prepared for a month. Luiz Carlos emphasized that moments like this change the routine of the penitentiary system where, on a daily basis, there are many problems and suffering in relation to the effects of incarceration.

“It is a period of religiosity, of celebration in which they embrace ideas and participate. It’s a way we found to establish a different routine and promote actions that can bring joy, even if it’s momentary, and strengthen prisoners’ bonds with their families and staff.”he highlighted.

This Friday, the 22nd, a religious event takes place, where 11 prisoners from the closed regime who are serving their sentences in the so-called “jail” are baptized.

“We had a collective wedding that involved 20 inmates of the closed regime and this was only possible with the collaboration of the Court of Justice and the Vales Registry Office. Now is the opportunity for them to follow the spiritual, religious path. Furthermore, we managed to implement, and this is something new, the recognition of pastoral work for those who carry out evangelization within the prison. In other words, this becomes an act of work, a profession. For every three days of work performed, the inmate who converts and evangelizes has one day of sentence remitted. It is clear that religion helps, as they, the inmates, end up creating religious groups, where they identify themselves through faith and start to create communities. These are groups that bring a lot of peace of mind within the system. So, every inmate that we manage to bring closer to the church, to faith, is also an act of conquering the prison system”, concluded the director.

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