30% of California’s firefighters are incarcerated, and many make as little as $6 a day.
Another shameful reminder that the US constitution still permits slavery for prisoners.
Slave labor from prisons is used by the rich to depress wages of free citizens.
Yup and when the people in power can throw millions of people arbitrarily in prison for self medicating because our health care system leaves people without the help they need
California recently voted down a public referendum to end the penal exception to the 13th amendment. So they will still have incarcerated workers working for pennies an hour, just in jobs other than firefighting. Still not good.
It’s a step in the right direction. Don’t let perfect get in the way of good.
I voted for that one. My disappointment in my fellow man grows larger every day :/
If they really wanted to make a change, they’d let prison firefighters become real firefighters after they got out of jail.
You’re not wrong, but I want to see both. I am thrilled that they’re at least addressing one injustice, while still advocating for more progress.
*Edit- I am hoping that this will change the perception that prison labor is somehow less valuable than civilian labor.
Frankly, I think you could make the argument that prison labor is more valuable based simply on the fact they can pay them less and get similar results. While also lining the pockets of the people running the prisons.
My question is who pays the wages of the prisoners? The state? The Feds? I highly doubt the prison is paying them directly.
This is rarely mentioned in discussions like this but volunteer work done by prisoners often results in sentence reductions. Honestly if I were in jail it feels win-win: get out of my cell for a bit and reduce my sentence? I can see why pay is less important for them
True, but most volunteer work doesn’t involve them risking their lives. If they’re doing that, they deserve to get paid well too.
I am of two minds on the subject.
On the one hand, I am a bleeding heart liberal who figures that they have definitively made it clear they can do the job so let them do it.
On the other hand, firefighters (less so the wildfire fighting variety) are often in incredibly tense people centric situations. If we had a penal system that at all cared about rehabilitation I would be all for it. As it stands… background checks exist for a reason. And I still think there needs to be much more thought rather than just “You have a record, get out”.
Regardless: Fucking pay them for the job while they do it.
You have a record, get out
This I never fully understood. Isn’t the point of prison/community service orders etc. for the person to be punished for the crime or repay their debt to society? In which case, after the punishment has been carried out why continue to punish them further? They’ve done their time and hopefully learned a lesson. I understand background checks as a form of checking a person’s character for certain sensitive roles, but for everything?? Nah, that makes no sense.
American (and many other countries) penal system is about suffering, not rehabilitation.
I think that’s what he’s saying, the system is based on punishment and not rehabilitation so usually repeat offences and/or escalation/different crime types is quite common thus leading to the system where people who have a record at all can’t do much.
If we did have a prison system reform based around rehabilitation, then it would be much easier to ban people’s records from being used against them in the future
I think I remember reading something last month claiming that they’re working on that reform, too.
So they voted for keeping slavery, but only so long as some of the slaves are paid better?
And then Americans wonder why Canadians don’t want to join their country.
We don’t even want to be part of our own country
Why are firefighters in prison?
Or is it prisoners can apply to be firefighters?
Confused
Yeah, this title is less than great. When I read it, I initially interpreted as them deciding to pay full wages to firefighters who had engaged in on-the-job misconduct or something, which made no sense.
It should’ve read “California introduces new bill to pay prison slaves forced to labor as firefighters the same wage as free firefighters.”
As I understood it, prisoners in California can be applied to be firefighters.
I hope they get proper protection.
At first I was also really confused, the title is bad imo.
Reading further into it seems to be prisoners working as extra firefighters, not “normal” full-time firefighters that were arrested lol
“Introduces” is not exactly news.
Firefighter jobs cut their incarceration time in half. That’s gotta be worth something in this calculation. I definitely think they should be paid more than they are, though
Removed by mod
Only problem is they are cutting the non-incarcerated firefighter’s wages now.
