Exactly. 
To be fair, he was never a coke head. He was in a car with someone who had it in his vehicle. But I also grew up with the guy (not to mention my dad is an ex-con) and I can tell you, you would’ve been safe.
I think I’d probably let him rescue me, though I might draw a line when he took some time to look around for my wallet.
This is precisely why this program could be a good thing. Like I said, if you want people to re-enter into society and be productive, they will need to build relationships and have jobs. Giving them the opportunity to do a public service may help with that.
I think this is a great idea, actually. And they could also have inmates work in hospitals. I hear Michael Swango is available.
Forest fires require lots of hard manual work in making firebreaks and the like. That works well for inmates. I believe that other types of firefighting require somewhat more in skill - EMT work also, as you said.
Didn’t you get the memo? Government never, ever creates jobs.
Damn right. Think of how well behaved the brats in 6th grade would be if you put a convicted child molester in charge of the class. Give the getaway drivers buses, and you’ll get passengers to their stops much faster without having to worry about being delayed by those pesky red lights.
The Dude Fire of 1990 killed 6 members of the Perryville inmate crew in central Arizona. They take the same risk as everyone else and deserve the same respect.
More importantly to society–I’ve had the privilege of working with about 5 ex-cons who used their time on an inmate fire crew as a chance to turn their life completely around. They leave prison with a skill and–I hesitate to overstep here–I think with some self-respect from doing tough job well.
Could inmates in city fire departments be a different story? Yeah, it could. There’s more public contact and more chance for trouble. But in my experience of wildland firefighting I was always, always impressed by the inmate crew members I met.
Somebody also has to all the grunt work. Every call that uses equipment from an engine puts that engine out of service until it has been restocked, fire or medical. After a fire there is hose to clean and dry, chainsaws to work on, pumps to go through, tools to clean and sharpen.
There are many departments that use a combination of trained firefighters and volunteers to get everything done. At a medical call, maybe all the volunteer does is direct traffic, somebody has to direct traffic, that’s a job a con could do, saves the trained firefighters for actually dealing with the emergency.
Do you think the people behind this idea are doing it for that reason? Similarly, when a CEO moves his company’s call center to Bangalore, is he doing it out of concern for the unemployed in India?
And why stop at the state level? Federal government could save millions this way!
Imagine how much fun it would be if the IRS Auditor who came to check over your taxes was a convicted murderer!
Or what if politicians were prostitution Johns?
What if your parole officer…was on parole?! And HIS parole officer was on parole? And HIS parole officer, and HIS parole officer, and HIS parole officer…
Win-Win. They’re technically volunteers, so if they die, they die. Saves the state the cost of their incarceration. 
You’re on to something.
Prisoner prison guards!
Wow… how did I not see this one first??? This would save so much money… why just a few hours ago I saw another Doper complaining about how much money prison guards make! If we replace them with volunteer inmates…
What about wardens too?
Guard duty paid better, like $0.55 an hour compared to $0.35 for firefighters. We used to lose some of our better firefighters to the guards every once in a while. Especially when our criminal justice system likes to fine people while taking away their ability to pay. Garnishments for child support, court costs, tickets and fines, lawyer fees; guard duty was a lot better for a guy in that situation.
We could only offer overtime, a chance to get out for part of a day, and a chance to eat something other than prison food as our benefit package.
Thus proving no matter how insane an idea seems-- some bureaucracy, somewhere, has already tried it.
I don’t know if that would work. With all the inmates out fighting fires and teaching school, there wouldn’t be anyone left to guard.
Thus proving no matter how insane an [del]idea[/del] newspaper headline seems-- some [del]bureaucracy, somewhere[/del] person who has actual knowledge about the subject, has [del]already tried it.[/del] been using it for years.