Exploitation and Rehabilitation: California’s Prison Fire Camps Madeleine Fraix

Exploitation and Rehabilitation: California’s Prison Fire Camps

AUTHOR: Madeleine Fraix

ABSTRACT: This paper addresses the complex interplay of social, political, and economic factors that influence the positionality of incarcerated individuals working in California’s prison fire camps. The argument highlights the ways in which government and media responses to climate related-disasters, specifically the recent wildfires in California, create neoliberal narratives that render structural and institutionalized violence invisible. Through a discussion informed by concepts such as “structural and symbolic violence,” “liminal space,” and “biopower,” this analysis aims to emphasize the importance of ethnographic work in maintaining a less fragmented picture of prison fire camps -- one that addresses the intricacies of rehabilitation and exploitation among incarcerated workers. impacts on incarcerated people to be much more com

INTRODUCTION

Since 1972, the area burned by wildfires in the state of California has increased fivefold (Meyer, 2019). Immense blazes such as the 2017 Thomas Fire and the 2018 Camp and Mendocino Complex Fires dominate this trend, devouring the state and exposing what American sociologist Eric Klinenberg identifies as a “connection among state retrenchment, sis of camp environments as liminal spaces, emphasizing

rising fear of violence, and vulnerability” (Rogers, n.d.; n.d., pg. 309). Klinenburg highlights how climatic conditions have forced a government response that prioritizes profit, works to conceal the social and political dimensions of such disasters, and further subjugates marginalized communities. Furthermore, this current public health and climate crisis has highlighted the ethnoracial and class divisions that influence social and health outcomes. Governmental institutions and organizations have framed California’s wildfires as seemingly “natural disasters,” allowing them to render damages and deaths as invisible and a product of individual failures, rather than carelessness on the part of these institutions and decision makers.

This masking of structural inequalities associated with California’s wildfires, and the state’s response to them, has been applied to the very individuals who fight fires, specifically incarcerated laborers recognize how the state constructs and manages roles or prison labor while perpetuating the vulnerabilities of incarcerated people working in prison fire camps. Additionally, these analyses must be viewed within the historical context of prison labor in the United States. It is necessary to look beyond the simple, moral binaries of prison labor as either a necessary societal good or modern slave labor. A deeper analysis that takes into account the perspectives of incarcerated individuals working in California’s prison fire camps shows the dynamics and plex. It may be both exploitative, and, potentially, rehabilitative. In turn, discussing the fire camps as a liminal space between the walled-in prison and the outside world is essential for understanding the intricacies of these lived-experiences and their intersections with state power, health, and justice.

First, the following will provide a brief historical context of prison labor within the development of the United States penal system. This backdrop is essential for the subsequent discussion addressing the relationship between social discipline and prison labor, specifically the significance of structural and symbolic violence that perpetuates the institutionalized violence of the prison system. I will then look deeper into the organization of California’s prison fire camps, both in terms of the economy and the everyday activities of workers themselves. From there, I aim to deconstruct two competing ethical frameworks of prison fire camp labor in the context of neoliberal attitudes of governance, emphasizing the contrast between government narratives and ethnographic work done in the camps themselves. I conclude with an analywho are “hired” by the government. It is critical to

how their very positionality has made room for mechanisms of state power in relation to social categorization.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF PRISON LABOR

The imposition of profitable labor as penalization for a crime dates back to 16th century European “houses of correction” (LeBaron). In the United States, the prison system took hold after the dissolution of slavery. Section One of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution declares, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction” (US Const. amend. XIII). While this revision abol

ished slavery in its previous form and indentured servitude, it opened the door to mass criminalization and incarceration, permitting forced labor as criminal punishment to this very day. Some scholars suggest that this was a method of re-enslaving African-Americans post-slavery (Browne). Convict leasing allowed Southern plantation owners to purchase prisoners from the state to work on their property. Exploitation of labor, violence, and abuse continued with the development of the “chain gang” in the 1890s. This practice involved shackling prisoners together while they worked, slept, and ate (Browne). While the Thirteenth Amendment lay the groundwork for an expansive prison system, it was a “prison boom” from 1979 to 2000 that lead to an exponential rise in the percentage of African-Americans in the American prison system (Lawrence and Travis).

PRISON LABOR AND SOCIAL VIOLENCE

These historical shifts in social structures allowed for the creation of more prisons and the perpetuation of prison labor, producing new meanings and connotations that institutional structures have perpetuated in order to define people along the lines of race, class, sexuality, gender, and citizenship. In turn, these categories worked to transform the actions of individuals and their perceptions of themselves. This further influenced social structures, creating a feedback loop. Anthropologist and physician Seth Homes describes these connotations/meanings as “embodied dispositions” and symbols, such as “illegal” versus “legal,” accompanying racial categories (Holmes). For example, in his discussion on migrant farmworkers in the United States, Seth Holmes illustrates how this cycle acts as symbolic violence: the social categories inscribed on farmworkers, whether they are in terms of race, imprisonment, or class, lead to human bodies being taken advantage of by the state or private entities (Holmes). This symbolic violence goes unquestioned, concealing structural incompetencies such as institutionalized racism or damaging neoliberal market agendas that commodify Black and Brown bodies to provide cheap labor to the American economy. In short, symbolic violence is defined as harm that is manifested through the perpetuation of a dominant state ideology and coercive norms. Symbolic violence conceals structural violence, the organization of social and institutional inequities that injures and causes harm to individuals, while maintaining and reproducing inequities (Wacquant). Through the narratives of the media and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), symbolic violence has not only worked to naturalize the wildfires but has invisibilized the social inequalities surrounding who is affected and responsible. The prison system in the United States is a “race-making machine” that perpetuates both

LABOR IN CALIFORNIA’S FIRE CAMPS

The longstanding methods of social discipline and exploitation aimed at the Black, laboring poor endures in the 21st century (LeBaron). Approximately five million people are under the surveillance of the criminal justice system, and more than 70% of those incarcerated are people of color. Racism and class bias has laid the groundwork for the system of profitable punishment in the United States, one which has become increasingly corporatized: a prison industrial complex (Davis, “Masked Racism: Reflections on the Prison Industrial Complex”; Are Prisons Obsolete?). Today, incarcerated people work for both private and public entities, including companies such as Microsoft and Starbucks producing material goods and laboring in correctional facilities (Winter). Recently, the media has focused their attention on “inmate firefighters,” or incarcerated people working as wildland firefighters, most prominently in the state of California (McPhate; Todd and McMullen; Zaveri). Prison fire camps provide yet another opportunity to deconstruct the broad social, political, and economic significance of prison labor. This analysis will maintain a focus on men’s prison fire camps in California considering that there is a notable difference in the way that the camp experience plays out between genders.

Of the 44 states that utilize carceral labor for wildland firefighting, California is the most reliant on it, with approximately 30% of forest firefighters being from the prison system— almost 4,000 incarcerated individuals (Lurie; Zaveri). The mission of the “Conservation (Fire) Camps,” according to the CDCR is to “provide an able-bodied, trained workforce for fire suppression and other emergencies such as floods and earthquakes” (“Conservation (Fire) Camps”). In comparison to walled prisons, fire camps are quite small with around 80 to 150 incarcerated people, less than ten correctional staff, and equally as many forestry crew leaders. Fire camp placement is voluntary and requires specific eligibility. Consequently, those incarcerated in fire camps have spent at least several weeks in a walled prison before being transferred. To be eligible, incarcerated individuals must have five years or less left on their sentence, be considered “medium” or “low-security” based on an internal prison classification system, and may only be convicted of a nonviolent offense. However, there is a potential for varied interpretation of this final requirement by classification staff. This leaves ample room for discrimination as staff are representatives of state power who utilize labels to determine whether or not one is “deserving” of working in the fire camp environment (Goodman, “Hero or inmate”). Finally, eligible incarcerated people

receive about four weeks of training with a focus on physical assessments as well as lessons on fire safety and suppression (“Conservation (Fire) Camps”). Aside from preventing and fighting the spread of wildland fires, incarcerated fire camp workers spend the majority of their time on grade projects which prepare for construction or are necessary to develop infrastructure. These tasks are low-skilled and physically arduous. When workers are actively fighting fires, they are paid two dollars per hour at the most (McPhate).

NEOLIBERAL ATTITUDES IN GOVERNANCE

The ethics of prison labor in the United States have been a recurrent topic of concern and dispute. Two competing frameworks commonly present themselves throughout this discussion. One views prison labor as an amorphous opportunity for self-motivated rehabilitation, painting the fire camps as sites of efficient and positive transformation of “prisoners” into law-abiding citizens. The other focuses purely on the forced nature of prison labor as “modern day slave labor.” These opposing narratives applied to the fire camps fail to take into account the experiences of those who are actually imprisoned inside the camps. The CDCR embraces what sociology professor Philip Goodman identifies as the “administrative” discourse on rehabilitation (“Race in California’s Prison Fire Camps”). In the words of 2008 CDCR secretary, James Titon:

In these tough budget times, it is noteworthy that there is a program that provides so many benefits. The Conservation Camp Program provides the state with a fully trained workforce able to immediately respond to fires and other emergencies. The program saves tax dollars. We are able to enjoy the beauty of California at our parks and beaches. Our highways are clean. And inmates are better prepared to return to their communities when they are released to parole, enhancing public safety (“CDCR’s Inmate Firefighters Prepare for the 2008 Fire Season”).

Titon’s perspective highlights a neoliberal approach to incarceration and population surveillance under the guise of societal productivity and individual betterment. The economic productivity of the state is placed on a pedestal with an emphasis on “saving tax dollars,” and maintenance of “inmate preparation.” This disregards the structural factors such as poverty, homelessness, and mental illness that have funneled primarily Black and Brown individuals into the prison system in the first place. These social problems not only contribute to the initial imprisonment of individuals, but continue to prevent them from leaving prison and the fire camps to experience fully free lives.

As individuals contending with poverty, institutional racism, and other forms of social violence are labeled as “criminals” and imprisoned, penal infrastructure has become a big business. Furthermore, under the neoliberal capitalist government, criminal punishment based on racialised assumptions has become increasingly more important to the US economy. Desires to cut government spending and increase profit have led penal systems to capitalize off of the labor of its incarcerated population (Davis, “Masked Racism: Reflections on the Prison Industrial Complex”). While much of the punishment industry is led by private capital, such as private prisons, the use of prison labor to fight California’s disastrous wildfires is not. However, the Conservation Camp Program saves California’s “taxpayers” upwards of $100 million dollars every year (Adams). In fact, when the Supreme Court ordered California to reduce prison overcrowding, California’s Deputy Attorney General argued against releasing inmates because it would “severely impact fire camp participation, a dangerous outcome while California is in the middle of a difficult fire season and severe drought” (Hager para. 6). Consequently, government accounts emphasize reductions in government spending concurrent with the increase in government control, giving way to what Margret Sommers identifies as market-driven governance (Adams). This neoliberal ideology also invokes a logic of personal responsibility over structural incompetency and reproduces what LeBaron calls “racialized forms of market discipline,” unequal social order, and disparate health outcomes (Adams para. 2). This narrative contributes to the naturalization of the wildfires themselves, painting the victims of the fires as irresponsible in their preparation and reactions to the fires despite the institutional failures that have created dire health and economic impacts. Additionally, there are consequences with regard to how the roles of incarcerated individuals working in the fire camps are portrayed. In order to “redeem” themselves as “good citizens,” it is their responsibility to serve in the camps and maintain the well-being and economic prosperity of the state, no matter how exploitative it truly is. In these ways, narratives perpetuated by the government portray prison labor as a necessity, wildfires as an inevitable, unpreventable, “natural” occurrence, and incarcerated individuals purely as “criminals” who need to be reformed by structured, physical labor. These actions harm both the physical environment and the health and societal interpretation of incarcerated people.

Neoliberal ideologies employed by state programs and institutional interventions in the context of California’s fire camps are focused on supervising and controlling the population itself. This kind of management is what Foucault signifies as biopower, increased techniques geared towards surveillance and control of the public (Pigg, 1993, pg. 45). Not only are the bodies of the incarcerated subjugated and used as tools by the state in the face of a climate crisis, but the government’s refusal to pair down the carceral system highlights a complete disregard for the well-being of these individuals based

on their label of “prisoner” and market-driven social principles. This is further exemplified by the CDCR’s lack of data and focus on recidivism rates among fire camp workers, illustrating the neoliberal states’ ultimate disinterest in the rehabilitative aspects of their programs, despite what is communicated by their press releases and mass media. Instead, the state “simultaneously responsibilizes them for their deviancy while affording them progressively fewer opportunities to obtain stability” as those within the camps are seen as responsible for their own behavior (Goodman, “Race in California’s Prison Fire Camps,” 370).

BEYOND THE ETHICAL BINARY

Despite the intense historical significance of prison labor and the continued role of the state in the management and exploitation of incarcerated individuals, California’s prison fire camps present a tension where the agency of incarcerated workers is both crafted and subjugated. Multiple ethnographies on those incarcerated in California’s fire camps highlight the complexities of fire camp labor. While conducting research on California’s fire camps, Goodman interviewed T.C., an incarcerated worker. T.C. refers to the camps as “legalized slavery,” yet he also mentions that he could not imagine a better place to serve prison time and that there are some rehabilitative aspects (“Race in California’s Prison Fire Camps” 361). This perspective is shared by many in the prison fire camp system. Many view the work as exploitative, given the extremely low wages, yet also productive in the sense that it provides structure and teaches a sort of “work ethic.” Goodman’s ethnography identifies a common framing by incarcerated workers in regard to firefighting and grade work: they view this intense or dangerous work as a way of “giving back” or as a method of “gaining skills” (363). Duality is embedded in these responses, illustrating the sophisticated understanding that incarcerated individuals in the fire camps have concerning their expertise as firefighters. While advocates for the rights of incarcerated individuals often view prison labor as pure exploitation, the issue is much more intricate and goes far beyond the binary created by the media and the CDCR. This binary fails to take into account the multiplicity of experiences of the incarcerated individuals who are working in these conditions.

PRISON FIRE CAMPS AS A LIMINAL SPACE

Understanding the complexities of prison fire camps in the context of physical space and location can provide continued understanding concerning the mechanisms of state power. These institutional processes simultaneously exploit individuals in carceral institutions and offer rehabilitative aspects. Author, Robin Nagle, applies the concept of liminality to the process experienced by sanitation foremen when they are responsible for both management and actions of labor. The concept of liminality, or “the space in between,” can also be applied to prison spaces (Nagle 175). Thinking of the fire camps as a liminal space situates them between walled prisons and the free, outside world, as they share qualities of each. Furthermore, this positioning affects the manner in which prison fire camps are portrayed by the state, their racial dynamics, and the experiences of incarcerated individuals working in these spaces. These liminal forestry work spaces influence the surveillance of incarcerated individuals, creating a paradox where one is outside of prison when firefighting and doing manual labor but still incarcerated (Goodman, “Race in California’s Prison Fire Camps”). The environment of prison fire camps contributes to a carceral experience that is both exploitative and offers a possibility for education and rehabilitation, based on the experience of individuals within the camps.

In addition, the liminality of California’s prison fire camps influences the racial categories embodied and reproduced within these spaces. While the camps may be portrayed as “racial utopias” or places where race does not have social consequences, this is an incomplete picture. Indeed, incarcerated individuals fight disasters together, sharing water and actively protecting each other through hardship and dangerous situations. However, Goodman’s ethnographic work indicates that inside the confines of the camps, where activities aside from work transpire, racial groups remain as separated as they would in walled prisons (2014). Because work and living conditions are often better in fire camps in comparison to walled prisons, these circumstances are seen as permissible, if not positive, by institutions and society in general. Consequently, the impacts of structural violence are rendered invisible: the disproportionate amount of people of color within the state’s prison system, the historical cycle of violence and subjectivation of Black and Brown communities, bare minimum pay, and inaccessibility to union support and proper healthcare.

CONCLUSION

Narratives concerning prison labor, most recently in the context of California’s prison fire camps, have presented a fragmented picture regarding the intricacies of rehabilitation and exploitation among incarcerated workers. While my analysis may remain incomplete, it nonetheless aims to consider both the perspectives of incarcerated workers themselves and the role of the neoliberal capitalist state in the creation and perpetuation of violent social norms and structures. Furthermore, while the liminal nature of prison fire camps contributes to an open-ended, equivocal experience in terms of both everyday activities as well as racial and socioeconomic categories, we must examine the struc-

tural shifts that could lead to a more equitable system. In considering future state actions concerning California’s wildfires and prison labor, Ruha Benjamin’s concept of speculative fiction must be accounted for. Speculative fiction urges us to expand our vision beyond current methods of understanding structural violence. It highlights a search for broader social transformation in response to the socioeconomic, political, and racial vulnerabilities that may arise as climate disasters continue (Benjamin). We must continue to question the lack of union support extended to incarcerated fire camp workers and examine what their lives may look like with proper compensation and the opportunity for firefighting jobs post-incarceration. It is this anticipation and sympathy that precludes reformative actions against our state’s damaging, violent (mis)management of the incarcerated population.

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