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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

  • Written by J. Carlee Purdum, Research Assistant Professor, Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center, Texas A&M University
imageInmate fire crews work alongside professional fire crews and do the same work. But they receive little, if any, pay.David McNew/AFP via Getty Images

If you call 911 in rural Georgia, the nearest emergency responders might come from the local prison.

In 1963, the Georgia Department of Corrections began a program to train incarcerated people as...

Read more: Rural counties increasingly rely on prisons to provide firefighters and EMTs who work for free,...

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