New York Post
@nypost·2.4M subscribers·43.2K videos
Inmates fighting fires: Inside California's controversial program
Posted
January 10, 2025
Views
8,903
Likes
97
Comments
65
Engagement
1.82%
January 10, 2025
8,903
97
65
1.82%
Every word spoken in this episode is indexed. Type any phrase to jump straight to the moment it was said.
Type any word or phrase that may have been spoken. Click a result to seek the player to that exact moment.
Try a name, a topic, or a quoted line
See what was published immediately before and after this episode.
0:52Now PlayingAs wildfires rage on in Southern California, 783 prisoners so far have pitched in to help with the 2025 efforts. Dating back to 1915, the state’s Department of Corrections has trained incarcerated volunteers as part of so-called “fire camps." These firefighters and support staff are paid between $5.80 and $10.24 per day, with additional wages given during emergencies. Qualifying crew members must have eight years or less remaining on their sentence and exhibit good behavior behind bars.
However, the low wages and high risk have led prison activists to question the program as exploitative. A 2018 Time report found inmates were much more likely to be injured on the job than professional firefighters. Despite the controversy, California voters rejected a ballot proposition in 2024 that would ban using prisoners as unpaid labor.
Read more at
#california #wildfires #inmates
The New York Post is your source for breaking news, news about New York, sports, business, entertainment, opinion, real estate, culture, fashion, and more.
Subscribe to New York Post Sports
Catch the latest news here
Follow The New York Post on:
Sentinel Indexing in Progress
Metadata and chapters are available. Claim extraction for this episode is pending.
All video content is delivered via YouTube embedded players in accordance with the YouTube Terms of Service. Sentinel provides research tools that promote discovery and accountability across political media.
