So all we need to do is find a way to put people in prison!
Win-win!
Important to add, once freed they will be ineligible to take a job as a firefighter in California.
Umm
The website for this program states the exact opposite
https://www.cdcr.ca.gov/facility-locator/conservation-camps/faq-conservation-fire-camp-program/
Yes. A felony conviction does not disqualify employment with CAL FIRE. Many former camp firefighters go on to gain employment with CAL FIRE, the United States Forest Service and interagency hotshot crews.
CAL FIRE, California Conservation Corps (CCC), and CDCR, in partnership with the Anti-Recidivism Coalition (ARC), developed an 18-month enhanced firefighter training and certification program at the Ventura Training Center (VTC), located in Ventura County.
The VTC trains formerly-incarcerated people on parole who have recently been part of a trained firefighting workforce housed in fire camps or institutional firehouses operated by CAL FIRE and CDCR. Members of the CCC are also eligible to participate. VTC cadets receive additional rehabilitation and job training skills to help them be more successful after completion of the program. Cadets who complete the program are qualified to apply for entry-level firefighting jobs with local, state, and federal firefighting agencies.
For more information, visit the Ventura Training Center (VTC) webpage.
To my knowledge, this was only implemented recently and due to state budget cuts to firefighting services, fire departments in California are understaffed. Ex convicts can work as firefighters now, but it’s unlikely they’ll be able to do so. And as I said, this was only implemented recently so for many years they couldn’t. And hiring culture takes time to change.
That’s the first sensible advocacy point I’ve seen sense I started reading these threads. It really doesn’t make sense to assign prisoners to jobs they’re legally barred from.
From what I’ve heard this is actually an excellent job for many of them. It’s good pay (for prison labor) doing valuable work with a lot of dignity. And it’s work for their community that’s valuable on the outside. It should always be truly voluntary else it be horrifying, but if they can’t do it once they get out it’s not job training and it’s not reducing recidivism. These prisoners are doing heroic work, let them be heroic once freed.
All prison jobs should pay actual wages and be voluntary though. While the firefighting job is voluntary, many prison jobs are not. Including jobs making products for private companies.
They absolutely should not be allowed to work for private companies for less than a normal employee. That’s infuriating. Those companies should be burned to the ground. Disgusting
My thought was that they shouldn’t be allowed to do jobs that benefit the outside society at all. They can grow and cook their own food, clean their own living spaces, sew and launder their own clothes etc and maybe hold an outside job as part of a finite period for reintegration but I don’t like the idea of them being allowed to work outside the confines of their incarceration because I worry about a society being able to benefit in any way from incarceration. I think it should always cost way more to lock people up than to let them be free. If you think it’s worth it to keep this person out of society put your money where your mouth is. But yes at the very least they should be paid as much as a normal employee would have to be.
maybe hold an outside job as part of a finite period for reintegration
That’s not a bad idea. Like a student co-op to help get some job experience before leaving school. (and should be normal wages)
Fine by me - I’ve hired ex-cons to do work on my house and would hire them again. But there’s a lot of vindictiveness about people’s past deeds. An excellent computer programmer I worked with got fired when her background check turned up a prostitution arrest from when she had been a homeless 18-year-old. Then at age 32, after turning her life around, she found herself being abruptly escorted from the building by two security guards. The problem was that we worked in a school district headquarters - nowhere near away students, but rules are rules and bureaucrats gonna crat, right? I would have had her give talks in front of high school kids. But it isn’t just misdirected authority - ordinary people social media will equally crucify somebody for Liking the wrong tweet. Maybe flinging shit is just a primate instinct, I dunno.
A large force of inexperienced indentured servants fighting the blaze, yet so much coverage about the horror of a handful of female hires.
A lot of them are experienced though. They’ve been using prison labor for wildfire fighting for years.
Maybe they should pay them the real wage the other firefighters get then? I’m cool with them working but not with them being taken advantage of. That lowers the salary of every fire fighter not just the prisoners. That means a real firefighter is out of a job if a slave can be forced to do it.
If they get wages then they’d be able to build a better life after being paroled and they wouldn’t be getting sent back to prison on parole violations. So the system would lose its “human capital”… it’s sad. Never go to prison, especially not the first time.
That means a real firefighter is out of a job if a slave can be forced to do it.
¡Not if you commit arson!
I mean…if you’ve got a trained firefighter, someone who understands fire science…do they need to be the ones holding every hose? Why not just a bunch of muscle holding the hose (or digging the trenches) under the guidance of a pro?
No one is stopping that from happening they just don’t want prison slaves used for it. Considering how much of our justice system is just made up bullshit that incentivizes bad people to keep prisons full so there’s plenty of slaves to choose from instead of just making this a normal job that would require proper pay and benefits.
Yup and Trump will do this to illegals… Welcome to the concentration camps
Lol, he absolutely won’t.
Thats disturbing. I have no words…
Removed by mod
Same with immigrants
Slavery live and alive
What is this…some kind of Suicide Squad?
The Inflammable Basterds.
Isn’t there an amendment about this? We had that whole interval railway war over capitalism under the guise of fighting for that amendment?
“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction”
Oh I see, so Southern plantation owners just have to run individual prisons with open air detention centers for incarcerated individuals of color that happen to be lined with cotton plants and coincidentally they can sell that cotton for profit.
They did exactly that. Right up until the 1940’s when FDR’s Department of Justice went after them.
They’re still doing it, like there are still prison plantations in Louisiana where they send black people for having half a joint on them.
The thing about peonage is they kept people forever. That was the big problem. Putting a definitive end date on a sentence made it magically better. I agree that forced labor is slavery, I’m just referencing the dying gasp of the actual plantation system. While we should eliminate prison slave labor, it’s also nowhere near what the peonage system was.
Things being worse previously does not make what is now any better. Raise your standards.
That’s not the point there.
You joke, but … well, it is not a joke.
The 13th amendment
I don’t think we have chain gang type prison programs in Canada. It’s so archaic. Making license plates to have an occupation might be reasonable, but this chain gang shit is inhumane.
If someone lands on your property, you don’t get paid if you are in prison. Though if the board is loaded up with hotels on orange and the other players aren’t near your properties, you can stay in for a bit rolling doubles to avoid going broke.
How ‘well’ a society is, is a function of whether going to prison is a choice or not (of the prisoner)?
Removed by mod
👍
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
indentured servitude is “reasonable”.
legal slavery is “reasonable”
you’re on some good shit.
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
What are “perverse incentives”?
Removed by mod
I was being rhetorical.
If you use prisoners for slave labor the state will make more things illegal with harsher prison sentences to increase the slave population. Involuntary servitude and slavery it prohibits, that’s why they’re giving drug offenders time in double digits.
Want to end the War on Drugs? End prison slavery and end the perverse incentives for making more prison slaves.
So you and people who get free room and board should get equal pay, or they’re slaves, but you’re not. Got it.
In most states it’s not free. You have to pay room and board after you get out. Or they send you back, even if you served your full assigned time. The fees are legislated as part of your sentence and you’re not clear of the system until you’ve paid it for imprisoning you.
My issue really isn’t how fair it is or isn’t, and you can always bring up the most unfavorable laws as if they’re a universal standard. My issue is simply with calling prison labor “slavery”, which not only is inaccurate but cheapens the experience of people who have endured actual slavery.
What are you thinking slavery actually was? American slavery ended up being the worst kind. But there were all kinds of other slaves throughout history. At the end of the day, forced labor is slavery. Even if it has an end date.
If by “at the end of the day” you mean “overdramatic words make my argument sound stronger.”
Really living up to that name lovablesidekick
Thanks, I’m actually very cuddly!
How about everyone should be able to live somewhere without having to pay for it.
I totally agree with that and I believe the end of the scarcity economy is definitely on the horizon, but let’s discuss current issues within the current real world if that’s okay.
“Let’s discuss current issues” while you try to pit prisoners against wage slaves?
Why didnt the leftists stop this measure?
California is not the Socialist state Fox News would have you believe it is.
Its what like 40% republican, %30 neoliberal(also republican)? Not a bastion for liberals or leftists
Other way around, 46 percent Democrat to 24 percent Republican. And no. We’re not doing the whole, “all liberals are automatically actually neoliberal” thing. That’s ridiculous.
