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Black History Month 2025

$1 an hour: Experts question low wages for California incarcerated firefighters

The Palisades fire is pictured. More than 1,000 incarcerated people are on the front lines of fighting fires in Los Angeles County. (Leydi Cris Cobo Cordon/Daily Bruin senior staff)

By Alexandra Crosnoe and Vivian Stein

Jan. 16, 2025 9:52 p.m.

This post was updated Jan. 22 at 8:19 a.m.

As wildfires continue to rage across Los Angeles County, more than 1,000 incarcerated firefighters stand on the front lines.

These inmates are part of the Conservation Camp Program – a collaboration between the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and the LA County Fire Department. According to a July estimate from the L.A. Times, California’s 35 conservation camps have historically produced around 30% of the state’s firefighters but pay their workers between $5.80 and $10.24 a day – far less than California’s minimum wage of $16.50 per hour.

[Related: LIVE: January 2025 fires]

The California Penal Code requires all medically able prisoners to work during their sentences, said Josh Pynoos, the communications and advocacy strategist for the Anti-Recidivism Coalition. He added that this work is divided into three tiers – daily prison labor, prison industry work in which inmates create products used by state agencies and firefighting.

“If they don’t do it, they could receive punishments,” he said. “Part of their incarceration is to work.”

Firefighters receive the highest pay out of all workers who are incarcerated, and they live outside of prisons in fire camps, Pynoos said. The program traces its roots to “road camps” established in 1915, where incarcerated people worked on agricultural, construction and emergency response tasks, according to the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

Those camps evolved into the firefighting program that exists today.

Participation in the fire camps is a prison labor option, said Sharon Dolovich, a professor of law and director of the Prison Law and Policy Program at UCLA. She added that inmates who qualify and join the program have better living conditions, which include improved food and outdoor work.

She added that the risks of daily prison life, such as racism and the threat of physical and sexual assault, can make fire camps appealing for inmates.

“People choose to go to the fire camps when they’re in prison when they have the opportunity to get away from unsafe conditions,” Dolovich said. “You might ask yourself – is that a real choice?”

Dolovich said inmate firefighters receive just over $1 an hour for their work – a compensation she said she finds deeply troubling given the urgent, dangerous nature of firefighting duties.

“If you’re doing the job of a firefighter – a free-world firefighter – you should be paid like a free-world firefighter,” Dolovich said.

While prisoners can use their pay to purchase items from the prison commissary, these goods are often sold at a marked-up price, Pynoos said. Their wages can also go toward restitution, a monetary punishment for a crime that often accompanies jail time, he added.

Incarcerated firefighters – most of whom are already close to being released – also work in exchange for time off their sentences, Pynoos said.

The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation can pay inmates below the state minimum wage because of a series of exemptions in state and federal labor laws – which define prisoners as non-workers, said Aaron Littman, faculty director of the Prisoners’ Rights Clinic at UCLA. 

Proposition 6, a measure on the California ballot in November, would have amended the state constitution to end work requirements for prisoners. However, the proposition narrowly failed, leaving the requirement in place.

[Related: California voters to decide on criminal justice propositions in November ballot]

With a significant amount of the state’s fire department consisting of incarcerated people, California taxpayers greatly benefit from prisoners’ low pay, Littman said, adding that it would be very expensive to replace incarcerated labor.

This low pay also contributes to higher recidivism rates, Littman said, as it leaves people impoverished when they exit prison. He added that paying people who are incarcerated a higher wage could give them enough money to survive upon their exit, giving them the time to search for lawful employment.

“A lot of people end up in prison, at least in significant part, because of poverty,” he said. “If we were to pay people an appropriate wage, it would give people a sense of efficacy and mean that when they got released, they had some money to reenter society and start their lives.”

Craig Haney, a distinguished professor of psychology at UC Santa Cruz, echoed these concerns, adding that he believes pay for important, useful work in prison should be comparable to standard pay.

He said another significant issue of the program is that despite acquiring valuable training and experience in the camps, formerly incarcerated people often struggle to find employment as firefighters after their release. 

Dolovich said a 2020 law – California Assembly Bill 2147 – allows incarcerated firefighters to earn a “testimonial of good behavior,” enabling them to pursue employment as firefighters after prison. However, she said the process still requires the additional step of court approval, which creates an additional barrier for former prisoners looking to transition into civilian firefighter positions.

The law also gives incarcerated firefighters the chance to expunge their records upon leaving prison, Pynoos said, allowing them to earn a certificate needed for employment as a firefighter.

“When you have a criminal record or felony record, it’s very hard to get that certificate,” he said. “Before 2020, it was very hard for someone that was incarcerated, that fought a fire.”

W. David Ball, a professor at the Santa Clara University School of Law, said for some incarcerated people, participation in fire camps is part of their effort to contribute meaningfully to society. Many incarcerated people, he said, are in search for a sense of purpose while serving their time, making firefighting a popular option.

[Related: Karen Bass faces scrutiny for wildfire response, LAFD budget cuts]

Ball, the co-chair of the Corrections Committee of the American Bar Association’s Criminal Justice Section, said many people believe inmate labor to be necessary in fighting wildfires, but he believes the real issue is a shortage of civilian firefighters.

“It so happens that we have a captive labor force that we can pay very, very little to do these things, and so that works for us,” he added. “But there are other ways of doing this.”

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Alexandra Crosnoe | National news and higher education editor
Crosnoe is the 2024-2025 national news and higher education editor and an Arts, Copy, Enterprise, Sports and Social contributor. She was previously news staff. Crosnoe is a second-year public affairs student from Dallas, Texas.
Crosnoe is the 2024-2025 national news and higher education editor and an Arts, Copy, Enterprise, Sports and Social contributor. She was previously news staff. Crosnoe is a second-year public affairs student from Dallas, Texas.
Stein is a News staff writer and an Arts and Copy contributor. She is a second-year anthropology student from Thousand Oaks, California.
Stein is a News staff writer and an Arts and Copy contributor. She is a second-year anthropology student from Thousand Oaks, California.
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