Disaster Response Prison Labor: Exploitative or Rehabilitative?

California prison inmate putting out a fire during the Rim Fire in 2013. Photo courtesy of the United States Department of Agriculture/Forest Service,

In 2016, Shawna Lynn Jones was the first recorded female inmate killed while battling a wildfire in California through the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation inmate firefighting program. There have been at least two other recorded deaths of inmates performing similar labor since the 1940s. Disaster responses to wildfires in California exemplify a unique use of inmate labor forces—disaster response prison labor (DRPL). DRPL includes cleaning debris after a hurricane and other forms of post-disaster response. Though inmate labor programs have existed for decades, in California and around the country, the shocking prevalence of injuries and fatalities illustrates how dangerous these programs can be. They strip inmates of their autonomy while being simultaneously touted by correctional departments as efforts for the “greater good” of the community and even the inmates themselves. Simply put, DRPL programs must be reformed. By failing to do so, the carceral system places inmates in lethal positions with limited training to combat large disasters, limited to no pay, and few post-incarceration transferable job skills. 

DRPL-related legal infractions, especially concerning compensation for such dangerous work, are difficult to quantify because of a general lack of transparency regarding how these programs are overseen. While the 13th Amendment abolished slavery, it contained an exception allowing the practice to be used “as a punishment for crime.” Given the country’s perceived need for cheap (or free) labor after abolition, this loophole inspired most of the major prison programs that exist today, including DRPL. In Florida, for example, prisoners cleaned up after Hurricane Irma without pay; the same goes for Georgia’s infamous incarcerated firefighter workforce. Florida and Georgia are two of several Southern states, along with Texas, Mississippi, and Arkansas, that allow unpaid work for many prison jobs–mirroring one of the pillars of chattel slavery. Many other states pay prison workers, at the most, an average of 1.41 dollars per hour for “correctional industry” jobs according to research from 2017. On the lowest end, that figure is 14 cents. 

However, a lack of compensation comes at more than a financial cost for these inmates. Combined with nonexistent pay, the lines defining “occupation” are legally blurred. As a result, the plight of the incarcerated is further exacerbated by being forced to carry out dangerous and lethal tasks with subpar training, often resulting in severe injuries. When DRPL inmates respond to disasters, their dubious status as functional slaves of the carceral system is typically not protected under the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA). In Virginia, furthermore, DRPL is written up as “lending a hand” and a “crucial component of [the] public safety mission,” according to a press release from the Virginia Department of Corrections (VADOC) after Hurricane Helene in September. Thus, when incarcerated laborers do want to lodge complaints about injuries they experienced while working, rhetoric categorizing their work as both a public necessity and themselves as invisible workers prevents them from receiving justice.

DRPL and other prison labor supporters believe that work done in prison can prepare an incarcerated person to pursue a career in the same field after they are free, such as becoming a firefighter or another kind of first responder. However, because of the scarce resources available to train incarcerated laborers and the stigma around hiring convicts, DRPL seldom corresponds to potential job opportunities following the end of the sentence. While many state correctional departments claim that incarcerated firefighters, for example, can acquire jobs by the end of their time, the fact is that many of the certifications required for firefighting require “good moral standing,” disqualifying the formerly incarcerated. These certifications also include certain technical or pragmatic skills that prisoners lack while incarcerated and are denied access to education. Unemployment rates for incarcerated people, in general, are incredibly high: around 27 percent in 2017. DRP laborers—who already lack technical training and transferable work accreditation—are even more vulnerable to unemployment upon release. Thus, incarcerated people must receive guidance in applying to jobs that will accept them in their previously incarcerated state, or at the very least be given full transparency about how (if at all) their work is transferable to their lives post-imprisonment. DRPL programs do neither of these things. 

The bottom line is that many DRPL supporters feel these dangerous positions must be filled and done by someone. Free, dispensable, and easily recruited labor forces are the best way to ensure that disaster response occurs quickly without tapping into other governmental resources. Therefore, the prison system should be responsible for protecting the prisoners who do this work even if it does not benefit government or corporate actors. 

To begin, DRPL programs should be updated to include proper training and allocate funding toward training facilities and resources at large. Furthermore, as climate change worsens and these disasters become more frequent, DRPL will continue to increase in scale, thus popularizing a labor system legally comparable to slavery. Without updated codes, rights violations will become more common as disasters increase. For example, the increasing frequency of California wildfires is directly linked to the observable effects of climate change. Resources to properly fight these fires are also diminishing due to their increased prevalence, a fact the nation has seen as the Eaton and Palisades fires ravage coastal Los Angeles. The country’s collective reliance on incarcerated firefighters will almost certainly increase proportionally. Though DRPL is a relatively small element of the carceral system as a whole, increased likelihoods and severities of natural desires could incentivize federal and state governments to continue exploiting the mass incarceration system to generate more laborers. By paying workers at least minimum wage, protecting them under OSHA, and ensuring that the work they do is transferable to post-prison life, these workers’ labor rights––and their human rights, for that matter––would finally be protected by law.

Alessandra Diaz (CC ’28) is a staff writer for the Columbia Political Review studying history. She can be reached at amd2379@columbia.edu.