AB 247: Inmate firefighters: wages.

Under existing law, a prisoner can reduce their term of imprisonment by earning credit for, among other things, continuous incarceration, good behavior, and participation in approved rehabilitative programming. Existing law makes an inmate of a county jail who has completed training for assignment to a state or county facility as an inmate firefighter, or who is assigned to a state or county facility as an inmate firefighter, and who is eligible to earn one day of credit for every one day of incarceration, instead eligible to earn 2 days of credit for every one day served in that assignment or after completing that training.

This bill would require the above-described inmate firefighters, in addition to receiving credits, to be paid an hourly wage equal to the lowest nonincarcerated firefighter in the state for the time that they are actively fighting a fire.