Eddie Herrera, 47, served over 17 years in prison for armed robbery, but found redemption as a volunteer inmate firefighter. Now, he's embarking on a career as a professional firefighter after proving his dedication and skills through years of service.
Eddie Herrera, 47, served as a firefighter in jail and is now set to embark on a career with a unit But his life took a different turn at the age of 25, when he was sentenced to more than two decades in prison for being an accomplice to an armed robbery.
“It’s their way of giving back,” Sam Lewis, executive director of the Anti-Recidivism Coalition, which works to help prisoners once they leave jail and avoid reoffending, tells. One programme they support provides 18 months of training as firefighters and helps find inmates jobs. To date, around 270 people have secured positions.
Herrera does not seek to play down the gravity of his crimes. He says that early on he realised that to begin rehabilitation, he needed to be the driving force. The penal system, he claims, was more interested in “warehousing” inmates. Herrera worked with a fire unit attached to the city of El Dorado, close to Sacramento, and the lower-security Mule Creek prison where he was an inmate.
“We were treated equally as a firefighter,” he says. “And when we serviced the community, the community did not know we were incarcerated firefighters. They just saw us as first responders.” The New York-based group Worth Rises is among those calling for better conditions for inmate firefighters, and for assistance to help them re-enter the workforce.
INMATE FIREFIGHTER REDEMPTION SECOND CHANCE PRISON REFORM CRIME
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