next, a story where I changed my mind, maybe, I think?

Last Friday's StoryCorps started out like this:

Across the western U.S., wildfires are fought in part by prison inmates.

Whoa whoa whoa. Whoa there.

Is that voluntary? my brain is asking. Because if that's not voluntary, that has got to be cruel and unusual punishment, no? And doesn't fire fighting take a lot of training? Can you just pull in someone who's never done it before and put them on the front line? Is that an effective way to fight fires? How do paid-and-trained fire fighters feel abou...