This scientific paper deals with the crisis in the Brazilian prison system and an alternative to the failure of this institution, seeking more humanising sentences that meet the constitutional guarantees laid down in the 1988 Federal Constitution. Of the alternative forms of prison sentencing, the Associations for the Protection and Assistance of Convicts - APACS - stand out as the object of this research study, due to the high rate of re-socialisation that this institution has been able to achieve, in contrast to conventional Brazilian prisons.