GHRC Prison Labor Report Cited as Montana Inmates Deployed to Fight Wildfire
Montana state officials praise fire crew with prison inmates; national report, ACLU question pay
The Montana Department of Corrections deployed 15 inmates and three correctional officers to help fight a wildfire in the state earlier this month, the DOC said in a news release.
The inmates are deployed at the discretion of the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, generally for two weeks at a time, according to the Department of Corrections.
The program has been running since 2002. It represents one of many ways state and federal prisons use labor by people who are inmates to the benefit of state governments, according to a 2022 national report from the ACLU and University of Chicago.
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