Half of Hawai’i Prisoners Released With No ID
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ore than seven years after Hawai’i lawmakers adopted a 2017 measure requiring the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (DCR) to help prisoners obtain identification documents at release, over half of those released in the year ending October 2024 had none. For those leaving jails in the state during the same period, the number was even higher at 95%.
DCR Director Tommy Johnson blamed the prisoners themselves. “It’s not from our lack of trying,” he insisted, “you can’t make them fill out the documents for a card.”
Johnson also challenged the numbers, wondering how many released prisoners had an ID card waiting for them at home. He pointed fingers at other state agencies for a lack of equipment needed to process ID photos and signatures. It took several years, Johnson admitted, just to coordinate a plan for providing the documents with the state Department of Transportation, the state Department of Customer Service’s Division of Motor Vehicles (DMV) and the federal Social Security Administration (SSA).
But the DMV did not install the first machine to make a driver’s license or state ID card in a DCR lockup until June 2022. It was installed at the Halawa Correctional Facility. Over the next 18 months, 750 prisoners were released, but only 150 of them had an ID.
The legislature appropriated $100,000 in 2022 for machines in four other prisons, but none has yet been installed. Prisoners must wait for release from those lockups to get an ID card. As for delays in getting Social Security cards for prisoners at release, Johnson blamed the COVID-19 pandemic as well as “hiccups” that stalled a signed agreement with SSA until 2024.
Lawmakers have now introduced SB 224 to make DCR start sooner to help prisoners obtain ID. Currently that process begins a year or less from release. But Johnson said that those starting from scratch must wait “months and months” for a birth certificate, which is necessary to get a Social Security card, which can then be used to apply for a state ID. The new law will advance that process to begin as soon as possible after incarceration.
Source: Honolulu Civil Beat
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