30% of Calif. forest firefighters are prisoners
Inmate crews were used on the Washington Fire near Markleeville this summer. Photo Copyright 2015 Carolyn E. Wright
By Julia Lurie, Mother Jones
Here’s a kind of crazy stat: Between thirty and forty percent of California’s forest firefighters are state prison inmates. The state has become a tinder box of sorts from a four-year drought, and roughly 4,000 low-level felons are on the front lines of the state’s active fires. Here’s what’s going on:
Why are prisoners fighting fires?
For years, California’s prison system has operated a number of “conservation camps,” in which low-level felons in the state prison system volunteer to do manual labor outside, like clearing brush to prevent forest fires or fighting the fires themselves. A handful of other states have similar programs, but, with roughly 4,000 participants, California’s program is by far the largest. At its best, the program is a win-win situation: Inmates learn useful skills and spend time outside of the normal confines of prison, and the collaboration with Cal Fire saves the state roughly $80 million a year.
For each day they work in the program, the inmates receive a two-day reduction from their sentences.
Participants make $2 per day in the program and $2 an hour when they’re on a fire line. That may sound paltry, though it’s not bad by prison standards: Many prison jobs bring in less than $1 per hour. In addition, for each day they work in the program, the inmates receive a two-day reduction from their sentences.
And I appreciate the work of every one of them.
Lisa, I have to agree about our prison firefighters.
They learn a skill andt they just might save our homes from burning.
Keep going firefighters and put out those fires! OLS
Between the prisoner advocates and the firefighters unions I would have thought a program that worked this well would have been discontinued.
A firefighter I know told me the crew involved in the fire-tent incident during the King fire were inmates.
Might explain the lack of follow-up news coverage. I think the gov is afraid of law suites.
If one or more of the inmates turned their life around after the event it would make a great book/movie.
35 years ago I had to do two years on a CDF crew for a drug sales ($50 heroin sales). Been clean since and proud of it.
It gave me the training to become a local OC 36 crew member for another 7 seasons here in south shore. That gave me the valuable experience to run crews. Which is what i do to this day to make a living.
Give a convict a break, with the drug war as it has been for 30 years, There is a lot of potential “citizens” doing time on non violent beefs.
CCC’s is also great program for young peeps to learn self esteem and tenacity.
Hard rewarding work help save my soul. Get more convicts out of jail working and training.
I only reveal my old dark secrets in hopes that someone else can make the turn themselves. Society is too quick to judge…….. unless your a firefighter:>
Congratulations, Miguelito. Good post.
Mr. Lee:
“CCC’s is also a great program for young peeps to learn self-esteem and tenacity. Hard rewarding work helped save my soul. Get more convicts out of jail working and training. I only reveal my old dark secrets in hopes that someone else can make the turn themselves.”
Thank you for sharing your personal experience and I agree with you 100%. Sometimes all it takes is the presentation of that one opportunity to do something honorable that helps a person start to believe in them self and begin building their self-esteem. I find it unfortunate that the world contains so many people that take far greater pleasure in debasing rather than elevating humankind, but such is the world in which we now live.
Spouse – 4-mer-usmc