General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: 30 Percent of California's Forest Firefighters Are Prisoners [View all]nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)1.- I am not for incarceration, mass or otherwise. I would prefer outreach, early education, jobs, the end of gentrification...and a slew of other data points.
2.- Prison Corporation of America averages daily pay for their mostly mandatory programs that they hire for profit at .75 cents per day.
3.- this is not part of the prison industrial complex. There are problems with CA corrections, lots of them in fact, but this program is even a model for other countries.
4.- I wish we were able to use things like Sweden and Denmark as a model, where we even removed corrections at the camps, completely, and any wire, and paid these guys and gals the same rate as a FF-1 and offered them careers as they end the program, with different departments, not just Cal Fire and USFS. A few urban departments do by the way.
5.- the Nordic model includes prison inmates living and working among citizens, with a few unarmed guards and daily pay at min wage. This reduces issues even further and helps the transition process.
And it goes without saying....it is truly not black and white when you look at these kinds of legacy programs.