According to CalMatters Housing, California's 31 prisons are dealing with a serious problem: their fire alarm systems are outdated, broken, or don't work at all. The state would need to spend around $1.5 billion to replace all these systems properly, which includes everything from detection equipment to control panels and networking infrastructure.
Rather than make that investment, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has chosen a different path over the last few years. They've spent nearly $50 million between 2020 and 2025 on what they call "fire watch," which essentially means paying correctional officers to walk around and watch for smoke and fire. These officers already move freely throughout the prisons anyway, so the state is using them as human smoke detectors, typically compensating them through overtime pay on top of their regular salary.
The economics of this approach are striking. An experienced correctional officer makes around $9,600 monthly in base pay, but when they're doing fire watch overtime, the costs add up quickly. The corrections department is also testing a pilot program at Solano State Prison where they use lower-paid workers classified as office assistants instead, who earn about $4,300 a month, to reduce expenses further.
When it comes to whether this approach actually keeps people safe, experts don't quite see eye to eye. Some fire safety specialists, like a University of Buffalo professor who studies disasters in prisons, say that functional fire alarm systems are something every facility should consider basic disaster preparedness. However, others, including a former state corrections secretary, question whether all this spending on fire watch coverage is really necessary.
What I am seeing locally is that deferred maintenance and infrastructure problems in public facilities seem to pop up everywhere, not just in prisons. When systems get old and maintenance gets underfunded, creative workarounds become the default, but they're not always sustainable solutions for protecting people in buildings.
