Amanda Chicago Lewis/BuzzFeed
Holton Conservation Camp is like a summer camp for prison inmates—only they're tasked with fighting California wildfires. And they're only getting paid $2 an hour to perform some of the most dangerous tasks involved with fighting a fire.
According to Buzzfeed, inmate firefighters save California roughly a billion dollars per year. However, public opinion in the U.S. regarding locking up nonviolent offenders, who are the only candidates for the firefighting program, is shifting. That same pool of candidates could disappear.
It's also viewed as a rehabilitation program; a way to teach criminals how to work, and make an honest living. But Buzzfeed notes most of the participants come from poverty, and know what it's like to work multiple minimum wage jobs.
From the story: "About half of the people fighting wildland fires on the ground for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) are incarcerated: over 4,400 prisoners, housed at 42 inmate fire camps, including three for women. Together, says Capt. Jorge Santana, the California Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation (CDCR) liaison who supervises the camps, they save the state over $1 billion a year. This year, California has had over 5,300 wildfires, which is about 700 more than had occurred by this time in 2013, and a thousand more than the five-year average. Now, as the West is coming to the end of one of the driest, hottest years in recorded history, the work of inmate firefighters has become essential to California’s financial and environmental health."
Read the full investigation at Buzzfeed.