As 2025 began, Los Angeles was ravaged by historic fires. Residents were forced to rely on firefighters to bravely confront walls of flames that threatened their homes and lives. Among the crews that responded — and continue to — were more than 1,000 incarcerated firefighters paid as little as $5.80 each day. With the fires now largely contained, we cannot forget their heroism.
For over two years, I served California as a firefighter. I responded to car accidents, medical emergencies, and wildfires. I was deployed to the scene of heart attacks, drownings, and overdoses. I performed CPR to resuscitate unconscious people, rescued others trapped in crushed vehicles, and evacuated people from homes threatened by wildfires. Along with other incarcerated women, I saved lives.
The work was rewarding, and at times I loved it. It gave me a sense of purpose in a place where that is hard to find: prison. But make no mistake, neither I nor my work felt dignified or valued.
I signed up to be a firefighter to do what little I could to improve my lot in prison. It was one of the few jobs that allowed you to leave prison grounds — a dream when you’re locked up. It was also the highest-paying job, though even on those wages, I couldn’t support my three children or even afford regular calls and visits with them. And I couldn’t pay back my court fees; my debt just mounted as I tried to prepare for my release, which proved impossible.
But perhaps worst of all, I wasn’t afforded the support, protections, and opportunities that non-incarcerated firefighters were. Incarcerated firefighters are four times more likely to sustain injuries than non-incarcerated firefighters, according to a 2018 report in Time that drew on Freedom of Information Act requests. Yet our medical care was insufficient for the injuries we sustained. There was no therapy after difficult calls. And when I did go home, I couldn’t get a job as a firefighter because of my criminal record — a law that only recently changed.
If it wasn’t already obvious that California ruthlessly relied on prison labor without appreciating the humanity of incarcerated workers, one call made it clear:
It was Christmas Eve, and our engine got called to a house fire. The family made it out, but the home was ablaze. We couldn’t stop thinking about the children and what we could do to save their Christmas. We ran back into the house and did what we could to save the gifts under the tree, some family keepsakes, and anything else we found.
As we were running in and out of the burning house, a correctional officer from our prison ran up. To our surprise, it was his house. This was a man who controlled every move we made, who told us when we could and couldn’t talk to our own children, and who locked us in our cages every night. Saving his house wouldn’t and didn’t change that. It weighed on us, but we continued in and out of the flames.
Recently, California's state attorneys argued in court against releasing people despite overcrowding because it would hinder the state’s ability to fight wildfires. They lost, and later reforms sped up releases, which further reduced the number of incarcerated people eligible for the firefighter program, throwing the state into a crisis. It should have inspired California to recognize and value the labor of incarcerated people, but it didn’t.
Efforts to amend the California state constitution to prohibit slavery and involuntary servitude as punishment for crime — which is still allowed under the exception in the 13th Amendment of the US Constitution — continue to fail as too many indignify our work and deny our humanity. As recently as November, Proposition 6, which would have prohibited involuntary servitude for incarcerated people, the only group denied this basic human right, lost, with 54% of Californians rejecting the measure compared with only 46% in support.
California is far from the liberal safe haven many celebrate it to be. Between the claim that exploitative labor rehabilitates incarcerated people — who are disproportionately Black and brown — and the argument that our state economy is just too reliant on slavery to afford to end it, California sounds much more like the antebellum South than a modern beacon of progressivism.
Importantly, though, while our neighbors voted to preserve slavery and involuntary servitude, similar efforts in states from Oregon to Alabama and Vermont to Tennessee have successfully ended the exception in their state constitutions. Thankfully, there is even bipartisan support for a joint resolution in Congress to finally end the exception in the 13th Amendment.
This moment demands a reckoning not only among Californians but all Americans. Incarcerated people are routinely called on to support emergency response efforts across the country, as was the case during the COVID pandemic, when incarcerated people were tasked with manufacturing masks, hand sanitizer, and other protective equipment. This year, less than two months after California voters chose to uphold slavery, incarcerated people answered the call to run in and save our beloved and iconic city from roaring fires. Congress and every state can protect the humanity and dignity of incarcerated workers. So, please, remember this moment the next time you vote — and run to the polls for us.
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