I think you're missing a major contributor which is California's prison population [0]. Prisoners getting paid around $3-$5 a day make up ~1/3 of California's wildfire fighting service. Maybe you consider them to be "volunteers" but that seems to be missing some important context.
0. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-history-of-califo...
It seems to be a great way to reengage in the community and feel useful as a human being (and see people being grateful to you).
Not so sure the $5 are the driver here.
Better than watching a cellmate all day.
There aren't a lot of opportunities to earn money in prison. Having money in prison is important. Although having work time credits are more important as those earn you an early release.
> Better than watching a cellmate all day.
No one is doing that anyways.
Worse, you generally can't be a firefighter once you get out of prison as they don't hire ex-convicts. Consequently you're not even learning a useful job skill. Note that this hard-ban was relaxed in California specifically in 2020 under AB2147 (allowing prisoners who participated in firefighting programs to apply to have their records expunged in certain cases) -- but applies elsewhere in the US.
It is an optional activity if I understand right.
It seems rewarding to do a training to become a firefighter and join the team, than to idle in prison.
It is a volunteer role. Many people in the world become volunteers in the firefighters, a lot are unpaid. They do it for reasons beyond money (making friends, feeling useful, helping people, etc).
A prisoner may get some carrot as a reward (like less served time) but at the end, they all benefit.
Yes -- but -- by undercutting the wages you would have to pay people outside, it lowers the pay of the non-prison laborers. This hurts that community.
You can achieve the same result by paying them prevailing wage. This has the extra benefit of giving them some saved up money to start a new life when they get out, helping them avoid falling back into a life of crime to make ends meet.
I don’t see how you can do this, because you turn punishment into privilege. If the way to firefighter pay is through a jail cell you create all kind of problems around perverse incentives.
But it's not just hurting the firefighter market, lots of people just have issues with using prisoners as slaves.
If part of their job description was the equivalent of clearing brush/cutting fire lines in emergencies, I might consider it.
> Why is the market for firefighters the only one that gets free volunteers from this pool?
Do you have another source of willing, not-risk-averse, physically fit and competent people that are not doing anything else, know each other already, can be there ready to work together at a moment’s notice, and won’t bail partway through to go fill an instacart order?
I think the first step is people educating themselves even marginally on the topic of discussion before proposing policy changes.
I get that the motto is somewhat tongue in cheek but still, slave labor does tend to distort markets.
[0]https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/natio...