Battling California fires, inmates find a chance at better role

[flashl]

Big Sur, Calif. - The fire whirl came spinning up the steep slopes of Big Sur like a dust devil of flame. It headed for the new guy on the fire crew, Billy Gray, who threw on his shroud and bowed his head just in time. The whirl washed over him, then exploded into a grass fire.

"I turned and yelled, 'Spot fire!' I thank God I didn't get burned," says Mr. Gray, recounting his recent baptism as a prison inmate-turned-firefighter. More than 1 in 10 firefighters here at the Basin Complex – California's biggest blaze – are trained state prisoners.

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With 2,500 trained prisoners currently fighting fires, California's inmate firefighting program has proved invaluable as the state struggles to throw enough manpower at this year's lightning-strike siege. The 60-year-old program even seems to be weathering the budget crunch in Sacramento.

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Inmates are paid $1 an hour for fighting fires and get time shaved off their sentences. Non-inmate labor, he notes, goes for $10 to $12 an hour, not counting overtime.

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The program saves California taxpayers more than $80 million annually on average, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR).

Yahoo

As indicated, the inmate firefighting program is over 60 years old, and the same type of program exist in prisons around the country.

In this instance, the inmates' help is saving California taxpayers more than $80 million annually, why is California and other states having difficulty and resisting providing medical care for its inmates?