Doctoral Dissertation Research: Hero or Inmate, Prison or Camp, Rehabilitation or Labor Extraction?: A Multi-Level Study of California's Prison Fire Camps

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This research aims to better understand California's Conservation Camp Program, in which more than four thousand male and female prisoners are housed in fire camps throughout California. In these camps, which generally have no secure boundary and look more like army barracks than traditional prisons, inmates work either inside the camps or on crews outside the camps on various projects for government agencies under the supervision of forestry or fire department employees. Tasked with responding to emergencies, including wildfires, these prisoners constitute a substantial proportion of those doing the hard, dangerous labor of cutting fire lines to prevent and fight wildland fires. The current project utilizes interviews with inmates, officers, supervisors and administrators, as well as on-site ethnographic observations to explore everyday life in the camps in terms of the nature of rehabilitation and punishment. Another phase of the project examines what happens to camp inmates once they parole and return to the community, especially in terms of employment and recidivism rates. Although each phase of the project has its own methodologies and research sub-questions, the overriding research question is how one particular carceral setting fits into the larger picture of punishment in California and the United States more broadly. This project will therefore serve as a springboard for contributing to knowledge about punishment and social change by drawing from diverse literatures including law and society, sociology of punishment, and criminology. More broadly, the findings may shed light on the relative effectiveness of the fire camps in reducing recidivism and aiding parolees in securing gainful employment.