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ACCESS AND OPPORTUNITY FOR ALL >> Vital Documents
Campaign Brief:
Advancing Vital Documents Legislation
When someone comes home from prison, some of their most important tasks are finding a job and a place to live. It’s hard to do either of those without a driver’s license or social security card, and replacing those documents can take months. We can save time and reduce the potential for poor outcomes in reentry by sending people home with those documents in hand.
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Background
People come home from prison with a long to-do list, and many of those items require you to have government-issued documents. It takes a birth certificate to get a driver’s license, for instance, or a social security card to open a bank account. Employers and landlords will also want to see copies of these documents as part of the leasing or hiring process.
Getting these documents can be a huge headache if you lack some of the basic forms of identification, such as a birth certificate or social security card. It can take months to figure out where to go and who to talk to in order to replace missing documents — and until those tasks are done, a person might not be able to get a job or open a bank account, which can put them in vulnerable positions and at an increased risk of poor reentry outcomes.
Vision
Solution
Legislation we support would ensure that everyone leaving a Michigan prison has important vital documents with them. The Michigan Department of Corrections — which supports this proposal — has said that it already has a department policy that accomplishes this same goal; our legislation sets it in law, ensuring it remains policy going forward.
While the Legislature completed its work on this proposal, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer chose to veto the plan. While she said she agreed with the bills in principle, she said they conflicted with an existing law that encourages voter registration. We encourage the Michigan Legislature to make the changes necessary to resolve the conflict and send these bills back to the governor for signature.
