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| Prisons chief defends using violent inmates to fight fires |
| By philly.com- Don Thompson |
| Published: 10/16/2015 |
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SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - California's corrections chief is defending the state's use of inmates with violent pasts to fight drought-fueled wildfires, while promising to mend relations with critics who fear the prisoners create a public safety danger. "This is not the time to do any retrenching with the fires we've been having - and there's no need to do any retrenching because there haven't been any problems," Corrections Secretary Jeffrey Beard said. A state senator and head of the union representing the state's professional firefighters are calling for investigations after the department revealed this week that about 1,400 of the state's 3,700 inmate firefighters have previous convictions for violent offenses. Corrections officials had said for years that only nonviolent prisoners were allowed in the program. Beard said nothing has changed despite the disclosure. Read More. |
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