Every once in a while, I get a stark reminder of what is so wrong with our prison industry and the push for mandatory sentencing. So, you want to tell me that inmates are beyond rehabilition and we should just throw away the key?
More than half of the state's 3,800 full-time wildland firefighters are prison inmates earning $1 an hour as they work off sentences for nonviolent crimes such as theft and drug possession. About 2,150 offenders — either minimum security wards of the California Youth Authority or adults sentenced to the California Department of Corrections — have been out battling the flames."We wouldn't be half the fire department we are now without them," said Karen Terrill, forestry department spokeswoman. "I could tell you stories that would bring tears to your eyes."
The convicts usually are out of sight — as they were Sunday, laying more than a mile of hose, cutting fire lines and grubbing stubborn pockets of flame with shovels, rakes, pickaxes and hoes.
On the day the fire in San Bernadino County flared into a wind-whipped monster, however, residents there caught a rare glimpse of the prisoners in the unusual role of trying to protect houses.
The inmate crews are neither trained nor equipped for fighting house fires. But a 28-inmate strike team happened to be one of the first to arrive. They grabbed garden hoses and borrowed chain saws from homeowners. Burglars and thieves risked their lives to rescue prized possessions from doomed homes....
One family asked crew members back for dinner — an invitation they had to decline. Another family spotted them leaving a restaurant days later and rushed to thank them.
Another night, "a guy and his wife just drove up and handed us about a hundred hamburgers. That was pretty cool," recalled convicted burglar David Townsend, 34. "They treated us just like another human, which is nice."