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Director of the California Department of Corrections Kathleen Allison has announced that the state’s prison system will offer the incarcerated a fabulous opportunity to gain real job exposure with an unpaid firefighting internship.
“In the past, we’ve been rightly criticized for using prison labor to fight our state’s worsening wildfires and paying a cruelly low wage of 18¢ per hour,” said Alison in a prepared statement last week. “We’ve heard what you have to say, and that’s why we’re rebranding our inmate firefighting program as an amazing internship! In addition to risking their lives on the front lines of the largest recorded wildfires, interns will get the chance to sit in on real meetings.”
“This is an unpaid position,” she continued.
While in the past, incarcerated firefighters had been able to shave some time off of their sentences in lieu of pay, Allison has announced that this incoming class of interns will instead get the opportunity to do a final project at the end of wildfire season about what they learned.
“What we look for in interns is a positive attitude, a willingness to learn on the job, and lack of other employment opportunities due to a horribly exploitative system,” continued Allison. “This program offers interns more than just work experience — it can also set them up for future positions doing unpaid construction and janitorial work on prison property.”
At press time, Allison had rebranded prison as an expenses-paid hotel.
