QUESTION:
Are California inmates being used to fight those deadly forest fires in Southern California for less than $2 dollars a day?
ANSWER:
Yes, inmates have been helping local and federal agencies fight fires since 1915.
SOURCES:
Vicky Waters, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation press secretary
Michael Mohler, deputy director of California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection
California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation -- Conservation (Fire) Camps
California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation newsletter "Inside CDCR"
"A Brief History of California's Prison Camps"- Philip Goodman- University of California, Irvine, Doctoral Candidate in the Dept. of Criminology, Law and Society
California Code of Regulations- Pre-Hospital Emergency Medical Services-Paramedic Title 22 Division 9 Chapter 4 § 100174. Denial/Revocation Standards
PROCESS:
About 1,000 people remain missing after fires devastated California, and the death toll has risen to 77.
Viewer Tess sent us this opinion article that claims thousands California inmates are fighting those deadly fires all for $2 dollars an hour. It says even though inmates are getting rehabilitated and trained to fight fires, they are prohibited from ever being hired as firefighters upon reintegration.
Tess asked us to Verify – is this true?
Turns out – it is. We verified with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and California Fire Department .
Our Verify researchers found this program called “Conservation Camps," which started in 1915 and is designed to support local and federal agencies in emergencies like fires and floods.
"Yesterday there were just over 1,500 fire camp firefighters that were deployed to fires, including the Woolsey and Camp ones," Vicky Waters, CDCR press secretary, said.
There are 3,700 inmates serving time in one of 44 camps across the state. Camps are minimum-security facilities and only inmates with "good behavior," with five years or less remaining on their sentence, are approved.
Some convictions automatically disqualify inmates from being assigned to the camp, including rape, arson, a history of escape and sex offenses.
In 2010, nine men escaped from the camps.
Prisoners receive the same entry-level training that CAL FIRE's seasonal firefighters receive. CAL FIRE firefighters wear yellow protective gear, inmates dress in orange.
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"In an active fire, CAL FIRE makes the determination where all crews will be deployed based on the conditions and the safety and security of all firefighters," Waters said. "Inmate firefighters are not treated differently in the work they perform.Their primary mission during an active fire is to cut containment lines by clearing brush to keep a wildfire contained within boundaries."
Critics have called it "slave labor" – sending inmates into hazardous predicaments for $2 dollars an hour.
However, inmates must willingly volunteer for the program, and while it's still way below minimum wage, $2 an hour (+$1 when responding to an active fire) is considered top dollar compared to other penitentiary jobs.
Depending on skill level, prisoners earn between 8 and 37 cents an hour, according to a June 2018 CDCR report.
Anti-recidivism advocates condemn the program, saying that while inmates are being trained to fight fires, they are barred from ever being hired as a professional firefighters.
"To be an EMT (emergency medical technician) you can't be a felon," California Fire Deputy Director Michael Mohler said.
There are other positions, like "first responder," that don't require EMT certification. Still, Mohler says not having one "moves them a little bit down the list."
Under state regulations, you can be denied a paramedic license or have it revoked for committing certain crimes, like murder or attempted murder. You can also be denied for 5 years for committing two misdemeanors like intimidation or possession of narcotics .
Our researchers found two scenarios where an inmate volunteered in the Camp and was hired by CAL-FIRE a few years later.
Assembly Member Eloise Reyes introduced a bill that would allow ex-convicts to earn an EMT license, provided they were not convicted of violent crimes or sexual offenses and had been reintegrated for seven years.
We called Reyes' office to find out more about why she introduced this bill.
"If you've been convicted of a felony, you're not applicable [for an EMT1 certification]," a staffer for Reyes said. " You don't need, per se, an EMT1 license to work for fire agencies, but it's considered an unofficial qualification... you won't get hired without it."
The bill failed to move out of the senate, but Reyes did get a bill passed that would require EMS/EMT certifiers to track data on whom they approve and deny, and who applies.
So we can Verify yes, California inmates are helping to fight wildfires for $2 dollars an hour, and it's unlikely the work they're doing to rehabilitate in prison will ever translate into a firefighting profession.
