AB 1908: Inmate firefighters.

It is the intent of the Legislature that the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, the California Conservation Camp program, and the California Conservation Corps, in partnership with California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, provide firefighter certifications to incarcerated individuals who have completed the required training before or upon release.

The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:

(a)Since 2017, California wildfires have burned almost a 1,000,000 acres, destroyed 31,434 structures, and taken the lives of 128 people.

(b)The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation operates 44 conservation camps in partnership with the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL-FIRE) in 27 counties across California.

(c)In 2017, 650 incarcerated individuals assisted in suppressing the Pocket, Tubbs, and Atlas Fires.

(d)In 2018, close to 800 incarcerated individuals assisted with the Camp Fire in the County of Butte.

(e)Recently, over 400 incarcerated individuals helped battle the Kincade Fire.

(f)From early 2017 to now, three incarcerated individuals have died while actively working on containing a fire.

(g)California has approximately 3,700 incarcerated individuals working at conservation camps under the California Conservation Camp program, with approximately 2,600 of those being fireline qualified.

(h)As of May 2021, there are approximately 1,600 inmates working at fire camps. Approximately 900 of those are fireline qualified inmates. In addition to incarcerated firefighters, volunteers can work as support staff for the camps and include positions such as cooks, laundry workers, landscapers, and water treatment plant workers.

(i)An inmate is required to volunteer for the fire camp program and no individual is involuntarily assigned to work in a fire camp. Volunteers are required to have minimum custody status or the lowest classification for inmates based on their sustained good behavior in prison, their conforming to rules within the prison, and participation in rehabilitative programming.

(j)Some offenses automatically make an inmate ineligible for conservation camp assignment, even if they have minimum custody status. Those convictions include sexual offenses, arson, and any history of escape with force or violence.

(k)When not fighting fires, incarcerated firefighters perform conservation and community service projects. They perform a wide range of duties, such as clearing brush and fallen trees to reduce the chance of fire, maintaining parks, sandbagging, flood protection, and reforestation.

(l)Several counties use county jail incarcerated individual hand crews that assist with local fuel reduction programs and chipping operations, respond to emergency operations such as sandbagging and flood recovery, and assist firefighters in containing fires.

(m)After receiving valuable training and placing themselves in danger assisting firefighters to defend the life and property of Californians, incarcerated individual hand crewmembers that face difficulty and obstacles in achieving employment due to their past criminal record.

(n)Due to the their service to the state of California in protecting lives and property, those incarcerated individual crewmembers that have successfully completed their service in the conservation camps or successfully completed services as members of a county incarcerated individual hand crew, as determined by the appropriate county authority, and have been released from custody, should be granted special consideration relating to their employment postrelease.

(o)Incarcerated individuals participating in the California Conservation Camp program are required to meet minimum eligibility criteria as determined by the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.