Posted on 01/11/2025 10:42:17 PM PST by Morgana
Over 900 prison inmates are among the more than 7,500 emergency personnel fighting the raging wildfires that are devastating portions of Los Angeles, California, state corrections officials said.
“As of today, 939 Fire Camp firefighters have been working around the clock cutting fire lines and removing fuel from behind structures to slow fire spread, including 110 support staff.,” California’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) told NPR on Friday.
Though California has been utilizing incarcerated firefighters — and other laborers — for over 100 years, the practice is controversial and has been banned in Colorado, Vermont, Nebraska, Utah, Alabama, Oregon and Tennessee in recent years, according to Jurist News.
Inmates in states that allow it, including California, are often paid little to no money for hours of strenuous work, though the U.S. Constitution’s Thirteenth Amendment makes it clear that “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude” is legal, “except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.”
According to the CDRC, inmates are part of the fire brigade program voluntarily, and are paid just $5.80 to $10.24 per day, with additional pay being supplied during emergencies.
Californians had the option to do away with prison labor when voting on Proposition 6 in November, “which would have amended the state constitution to bar state prisons from forcing inmates to work,” Jurist stated, noting that prisoners who refuse to work may legally face disciplinary consequences.
The ballot measure was rejected by a margin of 53.8 to 46.2 percent, the outlet reported.
CDRC said that its inmates do not face disciplinary action for refusing to participate in a fire camp, and that those who do join receive safety and first-aid training.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
I remember Trump saying that too. I can’t believe it was never done.
Seems that genuine public servants would grab a shovel and join the chain gang. Especially since they were responsible for getting this done before it was a crisis.
I’d bet Newsom has never raised a blister in his life doing honest manual labor.
Very true. This is not new.
Inmate crews have been fighting wildfires as long as I remember. They were on all the lines when I worked for CDF back in the day. For every day on the line they got one day off their time. Nearly all were on their best behavior. They got all the food they could eat and got to sleep outside. Any inmate that got in trouble took the entire crew off the line and back to prison. I would think that guy was dealt with harshly. Women crews worked the kitchen and camp facility cleaning.
California prefers dykes and criminals for firefighters while firing and refusing to hire white men.
Personally I don’t they get paid enough.
Y’all know they could just sit on their arses
and get three hots and a cot for doing nothing,
after all they are convicts.
That is hazardous and hard work.
Be a little more fair, it may be worth
the money.
they were clearing brush up around Mulholland yesterday in LAFD effort to keep Palisades fire from entering the San ernando Valley. i thank them for doing this back-breaking work to help firefighters. i live in the SFV - ahd pray it does the trick as winds kick up now for next few days.
*Fernando
If California really wanted a large headcount to fight the fires, they need to impress all illegal aliens and cross-dressers in the state.
I visited Delta Camp a time or two. I passed by Parlin Fork, but never visited. The female inmates I saw, at a fire, north of Vacaville, were actually fighting the fire, not cooking.
What could go wrong?
Better than having them sit on their butts. I doubt that they’re picking the real crazies out of the prison population, but it’s California so you never know.
Better than having them sit on their butts. I doubt that they’re picking the real crazies out of the prison population, but it’s California so you never know.
They can guard against looters...
LOL.. 😁
Let’s all mail a urine specimen to Newsom so he has more water to fight fires, maybe Labcor could donate a few hundred gallons.
When I was a California forestry department fire fighter, summer into fall after high school, on the largest fires we worked on there were supervised crews of prison innmates also working on those fires.
When my dad was still in the Air Force, there were fires in the San Bernardino Mountains where the guys at Norton and March Air bases were pulled in to supplement the regular fire crews. My dad, even though an officer, was one of them.
Making the whole crew responsible for one inmate that screwed up sounds like an idea that may have had some merit.
“Making the whole crew responsible for one inmate that screwed up sounds like an idea that may have had some merit.”
Oh it did. They were well policed by their own. Would you want to be locked back up in GP with a 50 man crew you just got pulled off a fire line AND lost the credit for your day on the line = a day off your sentence ? Now that I think about it. I don’t even think the guards carried guns. I don’t recall seeing any around the camp, but maybe the guards stayed elsewhere.
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