SAN JOSE, Calif. — When Benjamin Fowler was serving a second 10-year prison term, he didn’t see a clear path forward to a new life after his time was up. He was in his mid-30s, with a young son, a teenage daughter and a 2023 release date. He figured he would try to get back into landscaping or become a carpenter.
Then in September of 2020, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed AB 2147 into law, allowing incarcerated people who served as inmate firefighters to have their records expunged. Before its passage, many inmates were unemployable as firefighters after leaving prison because of their criminal records — even if they had spent years doing the exact same job, and even though California had a shortage of firefighters.
“As soon as I heard about that law being passed, it was probably a two-year process,” Fowler said. “But when I got to the fire camp, I knew that’s where I was supposed to be.”
