The Department of Justice is unveiling a number of reform measures to help address recidivism and support reentry for the formerly incarcerated. Attorney General Loretta Lynch is expected to announce those reforms at a press conference on Monday.
The Washington Post calls the majority of the reforms "lofty and unsurprising goals, such as giving prisoners job and life skills training while they’re behind bars and providing each of them with a plan tailored to their needs." While these are clearly important goals, without more specific details it is hard to predict whether or not such programs will be successful.
But one proposal in particular is causing some buzz. From the Washington Post:
[T]he attorney general also wants to help with a specific, practical problem: getting IDs for inmates once they’re released.
It might seem like a nuisance, but not having identification can have significant, real world consequences for those struggling to build a life outside of confinement. An ID is often necessary to secure a job or a place to live, to register for school or to open a bank account. And, according to the attorney general, it’s not always to easy for prisoners in the federal system to get state identification after they are released. In letters to the 50 state governors and the mayor of D.C., she said the Justice Department wanted to work with state officials to change that, developing a way for convicts to exchange their federal inmate identification cards and release documents for state IDs.
Making it easier to obtain ID is just one of the ways we could help the formerly incarcerated access the outside world again. And in states where those formerly convicted of a felony have the right to vote, this could make registration much easier.