One Dollar an hour.. Stay busy ..
Inmates Play Major Role in Fighting California Wildfires
LAKE ARROWHEAD, CA- They may have stolen cars, used drugs or forged checks, but when California is burning, they fight fires.
Of the 14,000 firefighters defending homes and businesses in Southern California from wildfires this week, about a quarter of them have been prison inmates. Officials say 4,400 inmates are trained to battle fires in the state and more than 3,000 were on the front lines yesterday.
A spokesman for the corrections department says it's close to the most the state has ever used.
The inmates go through a four-week training program. They must be physically fit, have no history of violent crime and have between four months to three years remaining on their sentences.
They're paid $1 an hour.
They program started in the 1940s and also makes inmates available for other natural disasters such as earthquakes and flooding.
LAKE ARROWHEAD, CA- They may have stolen cars, used drugs or forged checks, but when California is burning, they fight fires.
Of the 14,000 firefighters defending homes and businesses in Southern California from wildfires this week, about a quarter of them have been prison inmates. Officials say 4,400 inmates are trained to battle fires in the state and more than 3,000 were on the front lines yesterday.
A spokesman for the corrections department says it's close to the most the state has ever used.
The inmates go through a four-week training program. They must be physically fit, have no history of violent crime and have between four months to three years remaining on their sentences.
They're paid $1 an hour.
They program started in the 1940s and also makes inmates available for other natural disasters such as earthquakes and flooding.
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Very good idea.
Jon0 -
then, the government needs to take back their money and help pay for their stay[;)] 0 -
Wanna empty the prisons?
"They may have stolen cars, used drugs or forged checks"
Which of the above crimes is victimless and analogous to using alcohol, which by the way was once illegal in the United States?0 -
nothing like a little slave labor... 
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I had work release prisoners working for me at one time.. Damn good workers to. Back then the pay was 6 bucks an hour and the state took 4 of that. The were delivered to the front door at 8 AM and picked up at 5 PM. Most were happy to just get out for a while..Not everyone in jail is evil, some just made some wrong choices.. 0 -
been doing it for years (as stated in the article) - only had one major accident - 11 were told not to take a dozer up a canyon during the Inja Fire (1956) - they did - killing 9 trustees and 2 Forest Rangers.
http://activities.wildernet.com/pages/activity.cfm?actid=050202IO*53466p&areaid=CA&rectype=Interpretive Sites&startrecord=1&fromPage=summary&cu_id=10 -
A lot of states rent out prisoners to various industries, and a lot of them work the company's phones. (Maybe that's what's up with Taurus' customer service?) One telemarketing outfit that I know of pays something like $25/hr to the state, and the inmates get $.80/hr. Many prison jobs pay $.10/hr. I think if I was inside I'd take any job just to have something to do.
In AZ, when you call the Motor Vehicle Department, you're talking to a max-security inmate with a state-issue computer in front of them.
For the prisoners, getting on a work detail is a privilege, not a burden, and the wildland fire fighter program is considered the top of the heap.0 -
We employ several diversion and transitional inmates. We pick them up and return them in the evening. They do not make good employees, in my opinion, because all they want is out of where they are. The plus is that you do not have any no shows. Don 0 -
another reason we can get rid of illegals, don't forget we do have illegals in jail so they should not bitch when we do 0 -
"have no history of violent crime", so they where mostly ...nevermind 0
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