(via U.S. News & World Report)

California’s new corrections chief is backing off a plan to lower standards for inmate firefighters, focusing instead on persuading county sheriffs to send more jail prisoners to the state program.

Scott Kernan, who took over last month as secretary of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, said in an interview with The Associated Press that he expects California will have enough inmate firefighters for this year’s fire season despite a dwindling pool of candidates from state prisons.

…

Lowering standards could have added inmates with more incentive to misbehave or escape, Stanford Criminal Justice Center co-director Robert Weisberg said. But Kernan noted that inmates are reviewed to see if they are dangerous before they are sent to live in the unfenced fire camps or dispatched to fight fires without supervision from correctional officers.

“If you don’t change the rules of the prison, (the alternative) is to get them from county jails because that’s where a lot of inmates have shifted now,” Weisberg said.

…

Weisberg and Zimring said they believe the program is worth the public safety risk.