ID program for residents released from jail expands to Wayne County

The Michigan Department of State is expanding a program to get people driver’s licenses and IDs as they get out of jail.
 
Wayne County is joining four others in hosting mobile Secretary of State offices to help returning residents complete any steps to get an ID.
 
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said that’s an important step in helping people move on with their lives.
 
“You need an ID for housing, you need an ID to enroll in education and training programs, and securing a state ID or driver’s license through this program helps returning citizens get registered to vote once they’re eligible,” Benson said Monday at a press conference in Detroit.
 
The program is already at jails in Kent, Ingham, Genesee, and Washtenaw counties, where Grand Rapids, Lansing, Flint, and Ann Arbor are located. It started in 2020, when Benson’s office partnered with the state corrections department to offer to help people in prison get IDs upon coming home.
 
According to the state, around 20,000 people have received a card through that collaboration. In Wayne County, Sheriff Raphael Washington estimated around 60% of inmates did not have an ID.
 
Benson said any county can join, if their sheriffs are willing. She named others in metro Detroit as places she’d like to work with.
 
“That partnership is the most important thing. And we would ask and hope that sheriffs in Oakland County and Macomb County and elsewhere would consider partnering with our office for programs like this and I'm particularly proud that we are now in the state’s largest county, but we want to continue to grow through these partnerships,” Benson said.
 
Because her department already has Secretary of State mobile office vans going around, Benson said the program can scale up without too many extra resources.
 
Both her and Washington alluded Monday to the effort helping returning citizens exercise their rights, including voting. In Michigan, any citizen can vote as long as they’re not currently serving a criminal sentence.
 
Wayne County Sheriff Raphael Washington said the jail already has programs that help inmates who are being held prior to trial register to vote.
 
“I think that’s very important because they do need to be heard. They haven’t been convicted of anything, and we want to make sure they have a chance to vote. And so, we do set that up for them and we are proud to do that,” Washington said.