Doomed to Fail - Ep 164: Incarcerated & Fire Fighting - California's Conservation Camps

Episode Date: January 13, 2025

In an effort to try to understand WTF is going on as Los Angeles burns, Taylor spent a lot of time this week looking for misinformation and trying to find facts in this mess. It's wildly complicated; we're glad we don't work in accounting for a state or large city. One thing is for sure thank you Cal Fire for all you are doing to stop this disaster. One thing that stood out is that 800 or so of the firefighters in LA right now are currently incarcerated. We go back to the 13th Amendment, which says that essentially, slavery & indentured servitude can be used as punishment for a crime. This is still the case in California, where just this November, people voted 'No' on Prop 6 that would have removed 'Slavery' from California.Back in LA, about 800 incarcerated people fight wildfires. They are paid, although very, very little, and they are part of the California Conservation Camp program. It's a tough job, and we are so grateful that they are doing it. It's again back to the budget; where does CA's 130k per prisoner every year go? How can the system support these firefighters to become actual firefighters after they are released? So many other resources are needed to move forward.Anyway! Let us know what you think!  GoFundMe Donation Page – https://www.gofundme.com/c/act/wildfire-relief/californiaAnti Recidivism - https://antirecidivism.org/Who caused the LA fires? Blame swirls amid tragedy. - https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/01/10/california-wildfires-who-to-blame/77593196007/https://www.drought.gov/topics/soil-moisturehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Ana_windsThat’s not right politics - https://www.instagram.com/reel/DErGsZMsU9A/?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==LA Times - https://www.instagram.com/reel/DErBUFNRSjH/?igsh=NjZiM2M3MzIxNA==Lacontroller - https://www.instagram.com/lacontroller/?hl=enFire fighters https://www.instagram.com/reel/DEqrBKLvXrq/?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ== Pod save America https://www.instagram.com/p/DEs7XapSIuB/?img_index=1&igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==https://www.instagram.com/reel/DEsnC-eh6BY/?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ== FACT CHECK: Oregon fire engines allowed to fight wildfires in California - https://katu.com/news/local/fact-check-oregon-fire-engines-allowed-to-fight-wildfires-in-californiaCA Voter Guide 2024 - https://vig.cdn.sos.ca.gov/2024/general/pdf/complete-vig.pdfhttps://voterguide.sos.ca.gov/propositions/6/arguments-rebuttals.htmCalifornia prisoners are battling wildfires in long-running and controversial practice - https://laist.com/news/climate-environment/california-wildfires-incarcerated-firefighters-2025#do-they-completely-choose-what-they-dohttps://antirecidivism.org/https://www.charitynavigator.org/ein/462140915?donateNow=true&source=searchAutocompletehttps://www.cdcr.ca.gov/facility-locator/conservation-camps/ Join our Founders Club on Patreon to get ad-free episodes for life! patreon.com/DoomedtoFailPodWe would love to hear from you! Please follow along! Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doomedtofailpod/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/doomedtofailpod  Youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/@doomedtofailpod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@doomed.to.fail.pod Email: [e-mail] 

In a matter of the people of the state of California versus Hortonthal James Simpson, case number B.A.019. And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country. We are recording, Taylor. Hello, this is my radio voice. I've been practicing it. Do you like it?

I do. I like it. Should we do vocal warmups before we start? like red leather yellow leather that's what you know I don't know my name of them red leather yellow leather I don't know you learn that in you take theater at eighth grade

I don't know I did take theater in actually eighth and ninth grade but I don't know I I wish I had been in a play but I wasn't in any place I was in a play it was really embarrassing for me

you know I learned my my deep fear of being noticed in public I think it is originally it is sourced to that experience. What play was that? I can't remember the name. But I know that I was like an attendee of,

I was a guest at a house pretty where a murder happened. And the detective said that I had to like pop a balloon or something. When you pop the balloon like a piece of paper that was inside of it was in there, you can't read that out. Anyways, I popped the balloon. I couldn't find a piece of paper on the floor on the ground in the middle of like the entire play. And I panicked. And I started like just holding my hand.

I ended up in reading my hand and was like, this looks really bad. Oh, poor baby. I watched Clue last night. It was kind of like that. Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry that happened to. Cool. Hi, everyone.

We're a smidge low right now. Welcome to doomed to fail. We are the podcast that brings you history's most notorious disaster, epic failures, and such twice a week. And I'm Taylor joined by Fars. Hey Taylor Give me one second while I go get my glasses Okay I did get

I did go to the eye doctor For his left I'm gonna say it's anyway And I do also need bifocals I feel like I'm not wearing them now I'm not like blind But eventually I'll get them

Well I ordered them And then when I get them I will wear them more often I was telling everyone that I Order my bifocals I think you're gonna be Pleasantly surprised And I'm excited

Like I said It's like everything's in 10K. Like you're just, you're going to be like shocked. You're like, wait, this is what everything looked like. Yeah. It was so much smaller. Cool. Well, should we go ahead and dive in?

Yes. I have a question. I think you were supposed to go first today. Sure. Can I go first? Yeah. Because I want to talk a little bit about what's going on in L.A. a little bit right now first.

Yeah, go for it. Okay. Thank you. So, let me scroll at the top of my things. It's been like a fucking crazy week with everything happening in L.A. and a bunch of people, I mean,

several people I know have lost their homes. There's a lot of people here in Joshua Tree who are like refugees from it. We've donated some clothes and stuff like that because people have like a bunch of people over and it's just really been awful. you're still there? Yes, I'm listening.

Okay, you can hear me. Okay, so we've talked a lot about fires. I have a bunch of like prep stuff to say, and then I have my topics that I'm going to talk about. So we've covered fires, ones in London, Chicago, and San Francisco, and part of the issue is happening in California right now is like no amount of money can stop the wind.

You know, and these winds are just out of absolutely, insane and being able to like move you know burning embers like a mile a minute they are moving so fast and this is just something very similar to what we've talked to we've talked about in the other cases as well like you have a dry winter the driest summer on record like one of the driest winters you ever had and then you have these winds that are insane and a couple things from social media that I wanted to clear up and this is I wanted to go first because at least we can do this on Monday and then things might change. This is like what I know right now.

I have like a million links as my sources, but I was reading much stuff on Instagram and there's a lot of like weird stuff that isn't true and stuff that is true. The LA Times reporter Karen Garcia recommended going to charity navigator or guide star before donating to a charity. And you know GoFundMe also verifies who,

like they verify their things as well. So not you hopefully won't get scammed during that. And also like if you see something that feels really weird or feels like it may not be true, you can reverse image search it so like i don't know if you saw that everybody was saying the hollywood sign was on fire i do not see that no it's not but that was like one thing that was like up there um a couple of things that i wanted to talk to you all about about the weather is like as of right now so this is at sunday we don't know what started them i don't i don't believe but i saw someone

famous and i won't say who it is because i think that they're actually going crazy out hunting for arsonists and saying that they were going to like find arsonists in the woods and stab them. Like an actor? Yeah. Was it Mel Gibson? No, but I did see him to die in climate change

as his house is burning down. Can we, you won't tell us who the celebrity is? No, I'm actually worried about them. I think, yeah. But don't do that. Obviously. but we do know it's been a record dry winter from drought.gov which is a website the soil moisture in southern California so that's like the amount of moisture per square like square yard is almost zero so it's like there's no it hasn't ranged in a really long time parts of California like the Pacific Palisades have always had these grow and burn patterns and that's something that just like occurs in nature right like some some bushes will grow really big and then they hit by lightning and they burn down and then it happens

again and there's like definitely precedent for like burning a crop and then doing it again and like resetting the soil and things like that I saw something about how like native people knew this obviously that's true in places like the dust bowl where like the white people came in and ruined it because they were like oh we're not going to let the land rest we could just do twice as much blah blah blah we could talk about the dust bowl leader but I don't really understand that argument so I don't know how much you've been looking at this far as but like someone saying that like this here has always been like these like it's always burned and then come back but if we took all of the vegetation away and built houses I don't know if that's the reason that it would still burn like I understand that we it's a tinderbox but I don't know if it's like it would burn more because then the vegetation retains moisture that a house doesn't yeah that's what that's so so here's my perspective on all this like obviously like this is going to keep happening. over and over and over and over and over again one way or another

like in California in parts of California it's either a wildfire or an earthway's going to get you like one of the two things like it's just maybe I mean not for you because you guys are way out there but like that's just the nature of the most populous parts did that freeze? Let's see you again yep yeah okay you're back you're back

okay um yeah you froze for me we froze for each other I yeah in the middle of this like they took our power out a couple days because they turn the power off in Joshua Tree Yucca Valley because that reduces our risk for fire because our firemen aren't here. They're in L.A., you know? Can we kill our video?

Yeah. Yes. So, so my point is that, like, that's just the nature of California. And it's so fascinating because a lot of parts around the country where people want to live also have the exact same. issues so i was listening to pod save america and they were interviewing gavin newsome and you probably know this stuff because i've never owned property really really in california you have

so like he was talking about how insurers are leaving the state and there's two factors that i thought was really interesting one was them mandating my law to be in the state and then precluding them from leaving you uninsured if you file a claim. So apparently right now there's a law in California saying that if you file a claim, you can't be dropped for a year. So all the people who are filing for claims right now, like, hopefully they don't have to do it after that because they're going to get robbed. And it was interesting because it's the exact same situation in Florida with rising sea levels

and hurricanes. It's the exact same thing. It's just, I don't know, like, maybe, like, collectively as a human species, like, maybe there's parts of the world that we should, like, probably back out of a little bit as climate change becomes a bigger and bigger problem. But, like, that's kind of the situation. I mean, when this, when I was living in L.A., this same thing happened, except it was Malibu specifically. And what's the college university there again? Pepperdine.

Pepperdine. Where Pepperdine, what they had done is they have this, like, fire, wildfire suppression system that's, It's been around for years where they literally just water the lawns. They keep water all over the lawns, all over the trees. It's nonstop. It's drenched wet. And so when the fire gets to it, it extinguishes itself and won't go any further, which is what I think you mentioned when you're referring to when you said when Native Americans

were there is like, yeah, it wasn't kindling because it wasn't just a bunch of houses. It wasn't a bunch of dead wood framed up to a house. It was real living wood. But it also would burn down. like it was like an invasive species that every year would burn and they knew it and they like just wouldn't be there when it was burning that also makes it maybe the magnitude and degree of it is different but yeah like this isn't crazy I mean in texas their control burns all the time yes they're controlled and hopefully they stay controlled but when they're not they turn into this that's how it is yeah yeah I feel like I'm close to like getting it but like I feel like I'm a little bit off as in like the why does it have to happen but I think it just it's happening because like it's drier years and then the winds are getting worse and like all of those things

are happening so in that interview with Gavin Newsom one thing he said and look there's like everybody is incentivized to say whatever they say right like exactly and that's so glad that you watched that because that's what I want to talk about yeah so if you're like if you're in charge of the government of California you're going to blame other things if you're not in charge I want to be in charge. You're going to blame the people in charge. Of course. That's how it's going to work.

And there's going to be like a truth somewhere down the middle. But one thing that he said that I thought was interesting because the way he said it, I was like, he just said it with such conviction. I was like, there's no chance this isn't 100% true. He was talking about how he was like on some ridge looking into like parts of the wildfire that they could see over like into. And he was like, I kid you not. I saw a spark leave the embers of where I was looking.

and within like 60 seconds, the other hilltop was a blaze. Yeah. And I was like, yeah, that's, I mean, how do you stop that? No, I know. I know. It's so, it's so insane. One thing that, another thing is that, that ties it to is the wind. So the San Diana winds are really bad right now.

I'm going to explain kind of what they are. It also reminds, remember her in the Great Fire. of London that like at that same time the king or whoever and the Navy was in like the sea by Scandinavia about to have like a big naval battle and then they called it off because it was so windy like that's how windy it was in London and the Great Fire of London Day it was just like primed to be that windy and that's exactly what you just said that newsom saw so the Santa Ana wins their wins that wait is that a topic for today no I'm not even there yet no okay The Santa Ana winds come in the fall through January to Southern California and Baja, California.

They come from a cold front down from the Great Basin. And the great basin is like the top of Nevada, everything but Las Vegas, a chunk of Utah, a chunk of Oregon. And they are dry winds and they blow like over the mountains. And they're called catabatic winds, which means they blow downhill. It was like a strong, warm wind, super dry, downhill from that part of the United States to the coast. There are some quotes. They're just from Wikipedia, but like they're interesting. So from the book Red Wind from 1938, author Raymond Chandler wrote, quote,

There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot, dry Santa Ana's that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and their skin itch. A night's like that, every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husband's necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge. So like people report feeling weird when the Sandianners are blowing. It's probably because there's a lot of static electricity in the air of those of them. Sure. And also bad religion wrote a song in 2004 called Los Angeles is burning. And part of that is quote, when the hills of Los Angeles are burning, palm trees are

candles and the murder winds so many lives are on the breeze even the stars are ill at ease and los angeles is burning so it's like a cultural thing too you know people know what happens um it will probably get worse um and like you were saying like everyone's going to blame blame everybody else this is definitely like not the time to blame like the money's given to ukraine as nothing to do with this it couldn't have helped here you know real quick just i'm trying to gauge where you're at where you're at with this whole thing because to me like this isn't like really a tragedy it's like a natural effect and it is it's like written in time and memorial forever and ever that California has wildfires so like where are you is it like a you're like a 9-11 situation for

you or like is it like what are you thinking no no no I'm just giving as one being a little bit of stuff that's like just so some true things so we're not spreading any misinformation and then I have my topic coming okay okay are you seeing a lot of misinformation yes okay are you to say what that is yeah well i'm saying right now so like they people are saying that like you know the money that the government spending and other things could have helped and like that's not necessarily true in this case like we know it's going to happen and we could be better prepared but like we're as prepared as we could have been so have a couple more things too um the FEMA budget is not depleted it has $27 billion in it.

Biden asked for $40 billion, but Republicans fought it down to 27. It probably needs more money because this is just going to get worse and worse. Like, I've never heard of FEMA before Katrina, right? Had you? Probably not. A heck of a job, Brownie was the first time I heard of FEMA. Yeah. And I mean, even though we are, like, maybe it happened because that was like when I was like

starting to understand the news and like getting older. But like, I don't know. I feel like I hear it happened. You need it so much. right now because there's so many disasters you know um there's actually and then there's stuff back and forth about the la fire department budget um people are saying that karen bass cut it by 17 million but it's actually risen by 7% but there's not enough to cover like all of the repairs or all of the cost of living increases and all the things so even though the budget is raising because

budgets have to raise every couple years anyway before like people to live there have been cuts at administrative teams which does affect everything But there should be $76 million more dollars still coming. Those negotiations are still happening. So saying that they cut it that badly right now is not true. They're still working on it. But also the L.A. budget is a mess. The L.A. controller, Kenneth Mayha, is pissed.

And he is talking on Instagram about how the fire budget has been cut, how the money isn't like coming soon, the extra $76 million, and just showing how much more money L.A. spends and the police and anything else is really wild which is like a different topic but like those are the like la government arguments people are having right now i also heard and i think i mean you would probably know about this one than i would i mean you sort of you you sort of covered with um salt and sea but like the water situation in los angeles sounds like it would take a million phs a million years to untangle i think that's totally true i just this is so it's so it's much more complicated than like you i mean it's impossible so pointing to one person or but so yeah yeah

exactly exactly and so as far as water goes there is water but it's a pressure issue which we also saw in the san francisco fire because this water has to go uphill at such an alarming speed and quantity that like the reservoirs have water in them they just can't get to the tanks fast enough because the tanks are being depleted so fast because it's just nonstop water. You know, like the Pepperdine example. You know, like they're not on fire, but like they do use,

use a lot of water to just soak everything once everything's on fire. It's just like such a crazy amount of water that you need, you know? The winds are like 100 miles per hour. So it's like, like you said that exactly what you said that you can see a spark and then it will fly across and do something else, like so fast. There is, the water's not being diverted

to save a fish. That was something that Trump said about Newsom. That's not true. They also have a bunch of people coming from other countries. So Mexican firefighters and Canadian firefighters. Have you seen the Canadian super scooper planes? No, I don't think so. It's cool. So one of them, Canada sent two, they have a ton of wildfires as well, obviously, because they're on like the coast too, the same area. And they have a lot of forests. But a super scooper plane literally scoops water out of the ocean and then dumps it on the fire. Isn't that cool? Yeah, it seems like a hyper inefficient way to do it. But yeah, it's cool. Well, when the water can't come, when there's no more water, what do you do? I know. I know. It's just like the thing you don't want in a aircraft is a ton of weight and the heaviest thing is liquid. Well, that's exactly right. That's exactly the problem. So the problem with water that we know from all the other fires we've talked about is that it's heavy. know you can't just like bring a bunch of water somewhere like a bucket brigade brigade like

you can't hold more than two buckets you know like it's heavy so um Canada sent two super scooper planes and one of them is down because it hit a fucking drone because the person using their drone and they hits this plane that sucks yeah is this so bad um oh another thing so I saw someone saying that like the trucks from Oregon fire trucks from Oregon were being turned away due to emissions and that's not true either no vehicles from Oregon have been turned away or refused

by California because they don't meet California emission standards also not true can I say I'm like impressed that you are getting these misinformation campaigns because I mean all our social media algorithms are different I think I'm getting the misinformation information campaigns

You know if I'm getting the potting The one with the Oregon trucks being pulled away I did someone I know Who I unfollowed someone from college Who like doesn't say much but said this They were like they said liberalism kills Like blaming the emissions standards for these trucks not coming in When like A it's not true and B like

What are you talking about? You know But so a couple of things I've like tried to but mostly I'm getting like the Pod Save America stuff and the LA Times things that are trying to tell you like what's really going on as best as they can you know I think the Pod Save guys are kind of pissed because they actually all live in LA too yeah of course

of course like his tone with Gavin Newsom was not like deferential and like nice I mean he wasn't rude but it was like it was like hey it's kind of crazy like what's like it was I was shot you should listen to it It was really surprising. I did. Yeah, yeah. And yeah, that's what I mean.

Like, they are, like, what are we going to do? You know, like, it's, if, if people who are angry and, like, have everybody to be angry because they've, like, lost everything. And those people who are just, like, from other places, like, bringing their opinions in. And that's where I'm, like, that's where I'm, like, feeling it. The people, like, you know, people being like, oh, celebrities lost everything, but they're rich, who cares? Like, they still lost their homes and people that work for them but don't have jobs anymore.

You know, all sorts of things. Like, no matter what, it's a terrible thing to happen. And, like, we should figure out, there's a lot of stuff that's going to have to change. And I think that that's, like, a big part of it. I don't even know how you begin to really build or something like this. It's just crazy. Does that make sense? Yeah.

Just talking about it a little bit. I just think I've been having, like, very terrible jims about, like, the world ending. Just like, I mean, it looks like the world's ending. So, you know what's funny. Not funny. But, like, I actually wasn't privy to any. that was going on until probably Monday afternoon and then I caught on CNN and someone

was just running in the living room while I'm like walking around the house and I caught a picture of like the sun taken like during the daytime in LA I was like what is going on in LA like what is this? I mean it happened so fast like Juan was there on Tuesday and then came home Tuesday night and it was like super windy but

it wasn't like hadn't hit Altadina yet and hadn't hit other places yet yeah you know so anyway I'm gonna put a link to go find me the go find me donation page i clicked around and picked a couple and donated to them um just because i do that sometimes i just wanted to do make sure that everything was um kind of like doing stuff in there but yeah it's really awful and if your house was destroyed i did also post some tips on what to do but

the big thing is like like you were saying far as like call your insurance company immediately get in the line to like try to figure it out it's going to be terrible you know that is going to be terrible that part's going to be um um okay Okay. Are you ready for the real topic? Yeah, this is a hell of a setup. Yeah, let's do it. Do you know who else is helping with the firefighting? What 30% of the firefighting course is right now? Oh, my God. I was so hoping one of us would eventually do this topic.

Yes. So do you know what the place is called where you learn how to be a firefighter if you're in... San Quentin? No. There's 35 of them in California. They're called conservation camps. There's no better word than that. no no nothing better they can do than that are they were they trying to do concentration they now call them fire camps it says conservation then parentheses fire camps I'm like call it a fire camp or stop using the word camp I don't know like so many thoughts and I'm just like okay so honestly I've been very stressed out and I did some perfectly legal in California drugs

last night and I was like sitting around thinking about how you could in one part be like this is a good thing for these people and real quick just so so because I didn't really we didn't really say what the topic is because I knew what she was talking about

and I got really excited we're talking about how in California prisoners are used as quote unquote volunteer firefighters exactly okay go ahead sorry yes so I was thinking like you could justify it because

They're, like, they're helping and getting job skills. But prison itself is a punishment for the crimes, you know? Like this, and this isn't like learning how to like be an accountant or getting your law degree or getting your GED. This is like a very, very dangerous job, you know, that you are doing that you're volunteering for, but it's still very dangerous. So we had to go back all the way back to December 18, 1865, when the 13th Amendment was officially official. Do you know what the 13th Amendment is? Yeah. So this is where they made slavery illegal except, right?

Yes. It's like there's some exceptions that are carved out into the Constitution. So it has two sections. Section two, I'm going to do first. It's normal. Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. Sure. Congress can write laws that have to do with it.

but section one is neither slavery nor involuntary servitude except as a punishment for a crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted shall exist in the united states or any place subject to their jerk section so yeah you can do stuff that's considered that would be considered slavery or involuntary servitude if you're in prison yeah this is wild wild like i knew that because I know I didn't like I didn't know it said exactly that and I hadn't thought about it in a long time but I know that there's things that that could be a totally different topic obviously that like the continuation of like you know after slavery ended they sure shit built a lot of private prisons and incarcerated a bunch of people you know so that was actually so that was what I was most curious about was like the whole private prison the way that we have monetized prison labor. I mean, the firefighters in California is a really, really great example. It's an extreme example of it. But like, there's also people who are making Victoria's Secret lingerie in prisons. It's just like, it's like a weird little loophole. And like in some ways,

I'm like, who cares? Like if you were going to, I don't know, if it was me, I was going to spend the rest of my life in jail. Like, yeah, put me in the forest. I'll go fight up. Like, that sounds fun more than living there. But it also on some level, depending on like, person, that it is there are some irredeemable people who should run into a virus it's very I mean well those people aren't the ones who are even going to give them this opportunity you know if you're like a real bad bad bad bad bad bad criminal you're not going to be allowed to be in a fire camp you won't be like a serial killer with a heart of gold yeah no that's not not a thing um and so it's like that like private prisons and itself is like a whole other

topic but like I just want to flow that 13th amendment into a thing that we voted on in California just this last election cycle it was proposition six and it lost 46 is a 53% so I can't even find an argument for it but for some reason it was like so wait okay if you can't find an argument for it then good right I mean no opposite I can't find an argument So here's a proposition. The proposition was to end slavery in California's systems. So I couldn't find an argument against it. Everybody was like, we should do this.

It was approve of so many people. Like the CA voter guide, Lori Wilson, who's an assembly member, they said, you know, vote yes for Proposition 6. It eliminates all forms of slavery and involuntary servitude within California, ensuring no person is objected to such conditions regardless of their confinement circumstances. And California voted no. They voted to keep slavery and voluntary servitude

in the correctional system. And the group that... I mean, there's obviously arguments for it. Like, what do you mean there's no argument for it? Like, there was none in the voter guide. They didn't raise any money. Like, the other side didn't do anything, but that side won.

Like, the side that was... It's like the government wants it, retailers want it, the, I mean, the state wants. I mean, all. But no one put any money to it. You know, like the vote yes group had like millions of dollars. They did their outreach. They written all the voter guides, all these things. And there was like literally in the voter guide, it was like, this is what it says.

It says, ending slavery is a bipartisan priority with widespread support. It passed the assembly, 68 to 0. It passed the California Senate 33 to 3. And California is one of 16 states that still allow it. so like we have to reform it like those are the things for voting yes and then on the side literally the side of paper for voting no it said no argument here that's interesting i'm looking up with one of their states allow it yeah so propositions is all from like the from the rebuttal but proposition six supports national movement by closing the loophole in california's version of the 13th

amendment while it does not change federal law it upholds justice by preventing forced labor in California. Voluntary work programs reduce recidivism by offering skilled development and rehabilitation, aiding formerly incarcerated individuals in reintegrating into society. Productive work rooted in dignity allows reintegration by letting formally incarcerated people use their work experience as proof of their efforts. So that makes sense. Nevada still had it. Alabama just turned it off all that. So it's in a bunch of different places, but like we're trying to stop it like that doesn't make any sense right sorry what does it make any sense like the keeping the involuntary servitude part of that of the 13th amendment if you're incarcerated

it doesn't make sense to keep it like we since only 16 states left that let that allow slavery and involuntary servitude in their prisons yeah yeah I guess what I'm getting as like I think that to the states, it does make sense because they're like, we get the labor. Of course. But, like, humans should be like, I don't know. I don't know. I'm like, I'm like not totally in that wagon because, like, I did see that California spend somewhere around $67,000 per person to house in a prison. No, it's 130.

Wow. Okay. I must have read a different state. But, like, whatever it is, it's like, okay, well, if they can offset that costs to attack. taxpayers by like doing here's where here's where it's gross to me it's gross to me to do it for private purposes like if i'm the gap and i have the option of paying prisoners no money or three cents an hour to make clothing for the gap versus like laborers in the u.s or whatever like that's that's exploited in my opinion but if you're using the labor for government functions to

offset the cost of having a house someone that's in there because of their own actions then yeah sure fuck i do it why not well that's slavery is literally what it says so i feel like the prison is the punishment so i think i think that you're conflating like the pre-1865 slavery with what this is because that was based on conditions that were immutable like no no but this but this one's literally but like proposition six is for ending slavery in california's systems those are the words that it is uses i know but i think you're seeing the word slavery and like it is it is that it's just like i'm like doing the math on it like well

yeah like do it but don't do it in the gross way where it's done for private profits Do it for the state and for, you know, that to me makes sense. Well, they're already doing things like you have to, like, have a job in jail, right? You have to, like, clean something or be a cook or, like, whatever. Yeah, yeah. Like, that's one thing. But, yes, we're talking about, like, the involuntary working for, like, the gap. Like, that's okay.

What I was literally thinking, Taylor, as we were talking, was, like, the old cartoons, the Looney Tune cartoons of, like, a prisoner. stamping license plates. Yeah. Like that's what I mean. Like the parts of the government enterprise that has to run for the wheels to turn.

Like that's being like, yeah, whatever, if you have free labor and it's, we're going to call it slavery, but it's like people who voluntarily did some stupid shit and ended up in pretty, like, yeah, sure, I don't know. I don't care. I'm not like, that doesn't seem gross to me. What seems gross to me is doing it for private purposes. Well, I think, I think it's both.

I think both are gross. And like part of it is like, people have more incentive to keep people in the private prisons to be able to use their labor for free. So that is that is why I'm leaning on the gross part of this because the lobbying arm of private prisons is fairly strong and their incentives are driven by private enterprise. That is where I'm like, okay, you're you're creating a perverse set of incentives that only can perpetuate human misery but again like the government use case doesn't feel that way to me because there's no profit incentive and no state government is listed on the nasdaq like it's you know what

mean like it's just different well okay so as far as those camps go let me just tell you a little more about them and then you can decide more what you think but there's like in the fire camps you're not forced to do it like I said but it's a very very high risk because like right now there are 800 incarcerated people of firefighting in the wildfires in LA so they're risking their lives literally out there fighting the fire these fire camps have been going on since 1915 they expanded in world war two when all the men went abroad and they had to like figure out what to do for firefighters so they started bringing people who were incarcerated in right now the 800 people who are fighting are being paid between five dollars and eighty cents and $10.24 per day for being out there in the fires. So on the website for the CDCR, which is the California Department of Correctional, something, it says, while assigned to an active emergency, they earn an additional $1 per hour paid by Cal Fire, and then during emergencies, they can work 24 hours and 24 hours of rest on and off. The lowest level at that point would earn $26.

and 90 cents per day. So they're paid. That's how much they're paid. An actual firefighter. But these folks were volunteering. You can't, they're not forcing them to do this. No, but the incentives for doing it are like, well, let me, wait, okay, pin on that because I'm going to tell you this incentive that makes it feel weird to me.

So just a little more facts. Like I said, 35 minimum security facilities. that are fire camps in California. Two of them are for women. And like we said, so many prisons require work. You can work in the kitchen or on the grounds. You can take classes. You can do mental health and substance abuse things. And you can also do nothing. Like in some prisons, you don't have to do anything. A lot of it's like dead time you just sit around. And obviously, rehabilitation is good. If you can go into prison, learn a skill, come out and get a job. That is great. like I love that I'm all for that like you're not going to reoffend you're just going to like you made a mistake you just something stupid you learned a skill in prison and you moved on but like a lot of things that like it's not guaranteed you get these classes it's not guaranteed you get into these groups it's not guaranteed that you like get mental health support like that's all stuff that like is part of what that funding goes to is to that but not everybody's like guaranteed to get it you know sure so in the fire camp specifically you have to be in good behavior

obviously you have to have no history of trying to escape, which kind of makes me laugh, but like that's true, that's fair. You have to have less than eight years left. You know conviction for arson, obviously, sexual offenses or escape attempts. I said that, you have to be physically fit. And then, so the same work when performed by non-incarcerated firefighters pays between $40,000 and $125,000 a year plus benefits. The state, from this program, by paying these incarcerated firefighters 20 bucks a day and paying a

imagining that ours is at the top higher end of that that scales are probably around like say $100,000 a year it saves the state $100 million annually through the wage structure but you just said they're spending

that $100,000 for housing in administrative purposes they're not saving any money I know that's why i guess like i'm going in circles like why this is weird like not good if it feels not good i feel like i could go back in a circle and be like oh yeah no it's good for them but just in the end it feels bad so to me it will you know this creates a system where financial incentive to have higher incarceration rates um there's no like collective bargaining

or labor protection for people who are like working in these prison jobs and then also like the racial disparities of incarceration in the United States in general, it means like this disproportionately affects people of color. Supporters of it, people who are like, this is a good thing, valuable job training, additional benefits, like time after sentences, the work is voluntary, and it's how he's not after it because even though they're getting paid like very little,

it's still more than other jobs. And the low wages, like, and like you said, exactly what you just said, the low wages reflect the fact that they're getting the room and board for free anyway, technically you know yeah i'm pretty sure someone enlisted in the u.s military makes like 17 grand a year but it's like i mean same same like that person also doesn't have to pay for food or housing or transportation yeah but it's like more voluntary than this so i so i sort of get that like i sort of get those arguments so i do i am going like back and forth and that's why i want to talk to you about it but like two things there's legislation that is an incentive to join this program and it's

really fucking hard to become a firefighter so first there's assembly bill 2147 it's just in california other states have similar programs it was passed in 2000 in 2020 so what a b 2147 means is that former fire camp participants can petition the court to expunge the record of the crime that they were in for at that moment so not like their whole record if they were like in prison before this or whatever the specific crime that they're in prison for right now um which is a good thing because a big problem that I'm going to talk more about is like you can't become an EMT if you have a criminal record of a certain of a certain type and you have to be an EMT to be a firefighter um also not all conventions convictions can be expunged so like

sexual offenses, you cannot expunge that. It's not automatic. So you have to like petition the court. You have to get a lawyer. Law doesn't guarantee employment. So you still need to meet all other requirements. Some departments still may have their own hiring restrictions. And so you have been in the conservation camp, be released. You have to petition the court. If you have, you know, a bunch of documentation, go through the court. It can take six to 24 months to even go through the court to have that done. During that time, like you can't be a firefighter you know you're still trying to fight the court to get that to get your record expunged and so even though it's expunged for this bill it can still be used

in further criminal proceedings so they could bring it up if you do something else some employers can still see the record your record and federal agencies can still see it as well so it's not like perfect but it does kind of take it off your take that little bit off of your record which feels like if I go into the circle thinking about it is like if you take this risk with your life your reward is that we can clear a second shot at life

that's what you get you get like literally like a second shot at life but you but it's a huge risk like you could die yeah but that's where free will comes into play I know but I don't get why you think this is so bad like they get paid a lot more and they choose to do it

but and they and like like if you use if you extrapolate your logic to its conclusion then why aren't you upset that this is an offer to sex offenders or pedophiles or you know what I mean like then if we're if we should be magnanimous to folks that are incarcerated then where's your judgment draw the line and the boundaries on what is redeemable and what's not redeemable and what you should do to be redeemed or not be redeemed yeah i don't know i don't have a list of things that people have done that i think are like good or bad and that's like that's not my job i just feel like it's you still have to do go through all this work and you're not going to become a firefighter most likely because the actual numbers are very very very very

very low so you're doing this like really insane risk for this reward and like Maybe that's worth it for them and all of that. But I feel like it would make more sense considering the fact that we need more firefighters. So like that is a good thing. We need more trained firefighters. We need more people out there doing these things. They can work in the national parks. They can do all these things.

But like they need to be supported afterwards and they're not being supported afterwards. So that feels like a lot. That feels like a rational gap in the system that somebody should try to fill in some way, which is, you know, who was saying, honestly was probably as a client or the pod save guys, but somebody was talking about how, like, you cannot be a firefighter in San Francisco living in San Francisco. It's just like economically impossible unless you have family money, you married rich, something like that. But all around California, there's like these inner parts of the city or undesirable parts of the city. Like somebody could build like little parts for folks who are former prisoners and trying to rebuild any

their lives. Like, they won't be able to get a job making $150,000 as a firefighter, but they can get one doing like 50, 60, 70 grand as a firefighter. And, like, you've had these little multi-tiered firefighting stations throughout the state. That could be an interesting concept.

Yeah, that's a really good idea. Because the problem is, when you get out from this, like, if you live, none of them have died, but it still just seems so dangerous, like, so far. I think hopefully no one dies. Like, wouldn't have a fireman die, but the firemen die. But the,

But like the EMT course can cost up to $5,000. Firefighting academies can cost up to $12,000. So they have to get out of prison, go through all those legal stuff. So pay for all of like the lawyer to get everything off, whatever off the record. And they have to get certified for all these things. They need to be, they need to buy equipment, pay for uniforms. And it's hard sometimes to get, you know, financial aid for these things because of their records in any case. And there's not a lot of programs that provide financial assistance specifically for this,

which I think is what you're saying, which I think would make me feel better about this as if that was like a thing that they could get when they get out, you know? Yeah. You know, if they could like, and, and, you know, once they get there, they're like, you know, you get out and you're like, oh, but I don't know any actual firefighters, you know, like, they do try to help, but you can like, but you have to feed your family when you don't have to the time to like invest two years instead of you need to be a firefighter, you know, you're like back in the real world for the first time in however long.

so there's not a lot of like mentorship programs or support but yeah i think that there's like opportunities in places like middle of california where you could like you know jump in in there where they need more people um so there are organizations like the um ventura training center and then which is partnerships between the cdc r and calfire and the anti recidivism coalition um so they're trying to stop some of the barriers so like if you are doing this which is very dangerous and like yeah it's probably like the maybe an exciting and and good prison job if you have to have a prison job but like it just still feels so dangerous to me and so much like you're trading the like you're making you're making it's a weird decision to me and I can't and I go back and

forth. But I did. And also, it's not never. So there are stories on the CDCR website of people, one, two guys, one named Dayton Harris and Royal Ramee. They work in exactly like you said in like a small town fire department and they're doing great. So like that can happen. I also wrote, so I feel like that by this point we would have yelled a lot. Me and you. Yeah. Like we're not yelling, but we're like trying to figure this out. So like these are my final thoughts that I wrote down that I think I think we got to. So like this could be. This could be. a path to an actual career you know like it could be and it should be if that's something that people want with more funds to pay for fire school and there should be they should be paid minimum wage of the minimum even though like they're still part of the you know the um the prison system um if it saved a hundred million dollars but if we were able to like take some of that money put it towards education and people after they get out or more than that then they we could have more firefighters and we could have people really doing things like um you know not reoffending that sort of thing and i understand also that like

and this is where i wrote that california pays $130,000 per year per incarcerated person that must be wildly complicated i don't know what that means you know it's got to go into like the salaries of every yeah corrections officer the warden taxes for the property they probably don't pay tax for the it's got to be a super complicated super complicated so one of the supporters of the yes on six campaign just like the taking slavery out of our out of California is

the anti-reciidism coalition they in recidism is a relapse into criminal behavior and what their goal is is the membership the people who are involved in the anti-racidism coalition experience

a three-year recidism rate of less than 10% compared to statewide of 60%. So statewide, 60% of prisoners reoffend after three years. But people who are involved in this organization, it's less than 10%. So that seems really good. They're getting people back on track and getting jobs. I also

put them through Charity Navigator and the charity score of the anti-Refitism coalition is 95%, which means it gets four stars and you can give with confidence. So I did donate money to them as well um but for context like the the firefighters the anti-slavery legislation doesn't apply to them no it applies to other things but i think it's all connected okay the idea that you can pay someone in prison at all is i think like that's like paying them at

all is good since the amendment says you don't have to, right? Right, right. But you're paying them a little, which is like, how are they saving up to leave this? And like, you know, that $130,000 that is like obviously like

one of the top states who pays that much money, like how much of that is going into rehabilitation for folks who can be rehabilitated, you know, like, obviously we're not putting like an arsonist on this job. But maybe they can... I don't know. That would make for a really good comedy. It's interesting. You brought up like, you were like, well, they're getting $10 to $20

a day, and that seems really low to me. And I looked up what firefighters get paid, and I was like, I wouldn't do the job for what the firefighters are getting paid. Like, no. Like, we're just not wired that way, Taylor. Like, if I was like, if I was a risk taking

25-year-old, motorcycle riding, tatted up, cigarette smoking dude in California who was locked up for eight years for armed robbery, like, yeah, throw me on a fire like that sounds fun that sounds better than sitting in a cage all day like but like we're not like these people no i know we're not i know we're not and yeah i feel like that that's it's an interesting circle to think through like it's a good it's a good job being paid more than other

prisoners and they're helping people they really are out there to helping people i'm being very brave and like the people of the incarcerated firefighters that have seen interviewed they are like we're excited to be able to do this and learn something but i feel like the risk is so high and that's what makes me nervous like it's like the risk should be like the risk to reward ratio is something I can't wrap my head around I guess I'm going to tell you something teller that's going to absolutely make you nuts and probably make you really mad at me um but this came up also on pod save so my my sources on this are clean and without repute um apparently when Biden passed all of his um pardons one of the people he pardoned was this judge who was charged

for this Kids for Cash scandal, which was sending kids like the highest sentence he could possibly imposed to for-profit prisons, so they'd be used as slave labor. Mm-hmm. I believe that.

Yeah. Like, that is insane. I don't know the details about the pardon. Like, I didn't hear that, but like, people are doing that. The pod save guys were like, look, I mean, even they were kind of besides. This was like, what probably happened is they got like a huge list and they just like,

part of the list and didn't look at the individuals on the list and maybe there was like a deal like you know part in this guy and like won't fight you part of these guys or whatever but but yeah no that's gross and that happens and like so like I think that's why that's why we need the law to reflect that like you can't have that you know like if you want to pay them I guess you know low wages that's part of it but like they can't just do it they can't they can't just be doing like that slave labor labor for making things for private companies you You know, and I'm sure there's a ton of deals like that happening, you know, they're like, oh, you know, we need more skilled labor here, so, or whatever, we doesn't need more hands. So you give people longer sentences, and then they are working for free, which is, I was just, I was just really, I was overwhelmed by the word consternation camp. And I was, like, trying to understand, like, who these people are and what's going to happen to them, you know? Yeah. let alone the PTSD being a firefighter up there right now you know yeah like I think that the rehabilitation and like getting people to do good and learn things in in in the prison system is super important but that's like obviously not the number one thing that they're working on

in prisons I don't know I'm not going to say my life worrying about it you know but I like I'm interested in it I'm very interested in it because I find that the prison industrial complex. Like, there's something about America's ingenuity around capitalism being embedded in the fibers of every little thing that is always worth exploring a little bit further, you know? That's why, you know, that's why I reached my decisions, my own conclusions on the whole for-profit labor versus for state labor thing. I was like, okay, well, that's a distinction I draw my line where I'm like, yeah, like, that, that, totally reasonable i think like totally

fair totally reasonable um but yeah i'm not going to spend a whole life dwelling on this i'm glad somebody is but i'm not going to lose sleep over it i have lost love sleep over it because i've lost sleeper about the whole thing you know the fires you mean yeah and like who is helping other people and who is

spending their time blaming other people and then like in the meantime there's so many people who don't have anything you know so it's just like overwhelming yeah I mean yeah that could have literally been us for like seven years

like it's so it's so scary and weird um oh it looks like conservation camps were started during the new deal oh they must be like shit Eleanor Roosevelt that one because that makes sense

um I don't know. I'm glad I'm not a budget person either. That just seems like so stressful. Sweet. Well, thank you for sharing. Any other thoughts on this one? I don't know. Probably have a lot more in like an hour. Yeah. I think I thought of this as I was reading about the fire or listening to the news about the fires. And I thought about the prisoners doing it. And then I was like, I scratched that.

like a little one layer deeper was like wait a minute like there's like prisoners doing everything and yeah yeah going a layer deeper and going a layer day and yeah yeah it can uh you know i'm sure people if you have opinions on this right in duneful pot at gm.com let us do what you think i think i think we're going to get a wide range of opinions on this and they're all valid because who knows absolutely yeah i mean i feel like yeah it's very it's it's complicated because the most immediate thing is we need to put the fires out you know yeah and then and then worry about like the next thing and the next thing and like worry about it to be prepared for the next fire and and in the meantime have a system that is like working for people you know also let's like

have like a legitimate conversation about like what parts of the u.s aren't reasonably habitable anymore like if we have to rebuild louisiana in parts of florida and parts of California, every two years, like, what is that? Like, we just, like, give away, like, 90% of the GDP every two years so that, you know, 20% of the country is happy with the beach house. Like, it's crazy. Like, I don't know. There's got to be, like, some collective action around this of, like, hey, like, okay,

the climate change is happening. Like, this is real. It's happening. It's going to get progressively worse. Yeah. What do we do now? I don't think, I think that is, that's wishful thinking. and not just like rich people wanting a beach house

I mean just like people wanting to like rebuild and I don't think that there's going to be like huge government actually until you can't live there anymore I know the outcome's going to be terrible well no the outcome is going to be what it is which is insurers leaving and leaving people bankrupt then all of a sudden those same people fall like then they end up in the conditions

that result in them becoming involuntary firefighters like you know what I'm like it's your it's a self-fulfilling cyclone in some ways. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, it's not going to be good. Yeah. Anyways. That's much sign off.

Things are just going to get worse. Yeah, no kidding. That's a great sign off. Everything sucks. Everything sucks. Things are going to get worse. I'm going to put just some, just as a sign off, I'm going to put some places to do any of the type of our show notes to folks who have literally lost everything. It's really, really wild. and yeah well thank you for sharing taylor and thank you for digging up those resources and using tools like guide star um to help guide folks um and per usual find us on those social at duma palpott at gmail.com write to us at doom to phelpott at gmail and we will join

you all in a few days cool thank you thank you I don't know.