Rural counties increasingly rely on prisons to provide firefighters and EMTs who work for free, but the inmates have little protection or future job prospects

Prison officials have told me that incarcerated men and women benefit from the program because it provides job training.

Yet, incarcerated firefighters face significant barriers to finding jobs in fire and emergency services upon release. Current Georgia law does not allow participants in the program to apply for a civilian position with a fire department until five years after their conviction date.

Several fire officials told me that they wished they could hire the incarcerated firefighters they had worked with. But if they had the funds to hire more full-time firefighters, they wouldn’t have been working with the program in the first place.

Some states have worked to create policies that support formerly incarcerated firefighters. In 2020, California passed a law that would allow incarcerated firefighters to apply to have their criminal records expunged, making them eligible to apply for jobs as EMTs.

I believe incarcerated firefighters and fire crews in Georgia and other states would benefit from similar policies to allow them to find jobs upon release. The state and many others would also benefit from working to address the extreme vulnerability that rural fire departments are facing as they struggle to protect their communities with limited outside support.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: J. Carlee Purdum, Texas A&M University

J. Carlee Purdum received funding from The Natural Hazards Center, University of Colorado Boulder to complete this research. Quick Response Grant #247