https://www.newsweek.com/california-...outhern-748618
The article presents 2 numbers -
per CA "Corrections" -
"1,500 inmate firefighters on fire lines today in #LA, #Ventura and #SanBernardino counties. Crews are from as far as #Mendocino, the #SanFrancisco#BayArea and #SantaCruz. All inmate firefighters are volunteers, working 24 hour shifts in an effort to cut containment lines"
per PBS -
"According to KPBS, approximately 3,700 of the firefighters fighting wildfires in the state of California are prisoners, both male and female."
"As for what happens to the inmate firefighters once their sentences are up, convicted felons are barred from that line of service once they are no longer in prison."
re Hazards faced by inmate firefighters, who have less training than their un-incarcerated co-workers -
" In 2017, according to KQED, the only two state firefighters who died on duty were prisoners. As KQED reports, one of these inmates was a man named Frank Anya, who fell on an active chainsaw."
(Newsweek missed a firefighter suicide that involved a professional firefighter jumping off of Highway 8 overpass in San Diego, and seem to have omitted Cory Iverson's death, in this particular article.)
Is California trying to compete with China on the Prisoner Slave Labor front ?
California displays enormous lack of gratitude to the people who risk their lives to save the homes of wealthy Californians.
What is Fair treatment, in this context ?
I would say, fair treatment is something like, lose 1 week off their sentence for every day of firefighting service (noting that those are 24 hour days.)
Because re-integration into the community is Job #1 for prisoners who have completed their sentence, why would they NOT be given first-in-line status to apply for fire-fighting jobs upon release ?
References -
"On Sunday November 5 we lost another wildland firefighter to the suicide epidemic."
https://wildfiretoday.com/2017/11/07/we-lost-another-firefighter/
https://wildfiretoday.com/2017/11/04...-astronomical/
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/10/wildland-firefighter-suicide/544298/