This article examines the development and the legacy of a policy making experience that was undertaken in Brazil from 2004 to 2006, under a project labelled "Educating for Freedom". The project sought to provide prison inmates with access to education. It was carried out by a coalition that comprised the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Justice and the UNESCO Office in Brasilia, with financial support provided by the Japanese government. The central argument in the article is that, by taking seriously the "right to education in prison", the project helped define a broad, transformative agenda for the prison system in Brazil. The final portion discusses what should be done to keep this agenda alive, what we can realistically expect from it, and how educational policies fit into those prospective observations. The article was originally presented as a graduate student paper for the "Strategizing Public Policy" course at Northeastern University (Boston, MA). (Contains 36 notes.)