When they work, California’s inmates typically earn between 8 cents and 95 cents an hour. They make office furniture for state employees, state license plates, prison uniforms, anything that any state institution might use. But wages in the forestry program, while still wildly low by outside standards, are significantly better than the rest. At Malibu 13, one of three conservation camps that house women, the commander, John Scott, showed me a printout: Inmate firefighters can make a maximum of $2.56 a day in camp and $1 an hour when they’re fighting fires.

Those higher wages recognize the real dangers that inmate firefighters face. In May, one man was crushed by a falling tree in Humboldt County; in July, another firefighter died within a week after accidentally cutting his leg and femoral artery on a chain saw. But, after visiting three camps over a year and a half, I could see why inmates would accept the risks. Compared with life among the general prison population, the conservation camps are bastions of civility. They are less violent and offer more space. They smell of eucalyptus, the ocean, fresh blooms. They provide barbecue areas for families who visit; one camp has a small cabin where relatives can stay with an inmate for up to three days. They have woodworking areas, softball fields and libraries full of donated mysteries and romance novels. ‘‘I always up-talk the program,’’ an inmate named Amber Sapp told me. She noted how the quality of time served is so much better than that in most correctional facilities. ‘‘You see it on the women’s faces, on the staff’s faces.’’

Still, when they’re at work, the inmates look like chain gangs without the chains, especially when out working in Malibu, where the average annual household income is $238,000. ‘‘The pay is ridiculous,’’ La’Sonya Edwards, 35, told me during a break from clearing a fire road. ‘‘There are some days we are worn down to the core,’’ she said. ‘‘And this isn’t that different from slave conditions. We need to get paid more for what we do.’’ Edwards makes about $500 a year in camp, plus whatever she earns while on the fire line, which might add up to a few hundred dollars in a month; the pay for a full-time civilian firefighter starts at about $40,000. In 1999, in a study funded by the Open Society Institute, five prominent economists argued for basic worker rights, including minimum wages, for inmates. Those standards have not been widely embraced, however. David Fathi, the director of the A.C.L.U. National Prison Project, who opposes all forms of prison labor, told me, ‘‘I think one important question to ask is, if these people are safe to be out and about and carrying axes and chain saws, maybe they didn’t need to be in prison in the first place.’’