A Year After Reforms were Promised, People Leaving New York Jails and Prisons Still Lack IDs

In June 2020, Keith Gaffney was released from federal prison after over 16 years of incarceration. He had applied for a Social Security card while in prison but wasn’t able to complete the process before being released, so he left without any formal identification.

Leaving without ID made the already difficult process of reintegrating into society doubly challenging. “Not being able to get employment, not being able to get any type of assistance, not being able to get insurance – those are some of the difficulties I faced,” Gaffney told New York Focus.

Gaffney was one of hundreds of New Yorkers released from jails and prisons throughout the state each year who are unable to apply for jobs, rent apartments or access government benefits simply because they don’t have ID.

In many cases in New York City, the city confiscates defendants’ IDs and then loses them by the time they’re released, New York Focus reported in October 2020.

Asked about the New York Focus report at a hearing that month held by the City Council’s now-defunct Committee on the Justice System, an official at the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice promised interagency collaboration to address the problem in city jails.

“[We’re] in the process of beginning a sort of multiagency task force to address this very issue,” the official, Anna Calabrese, told committee chair Rory Lancman. “There’s broad consensus that we can do more … to help individuals leaving city jails obtain ID.”

But over a year later, there have been no changes in city policy to ease the process of obtaining ID. Instead, according to staff at organizations that help the formerly incarcerated reintegrate into society, changes to city policy have made it even harder.

Meanwhile, people leaving state prisons are even more likely to lack ID. “Many folks from Rikers are coming home without an ID. [In prisons] upstate, it’s nearly all,” said Chelsea Kraimer, the director of reentry services at the reentry organization Getting Out Staying Out.

Last year, Assembly Member David Weprin and then-state Sen. Brian Benjamin introduced a bill to mandate that all New Yorkers leaving state and federal prisons be given non-driver IDs issued by the Department of Motor Vehicles. It passed the state Senate in May but stalled in the Assembly. Weprin said he’s optimistic that it’ll pass when the Legislature reconvenes in January and that Gov. Kathy Hochul will sign it.

“It can be passed the first day of session, so I’m going to make it a priority to move it along quickly in January,” Weprin told New York Focus. “The fact that Brian Benjamin is lieutenant governor will help him encourage the governor to sign it.”

A spokesperson for Hochul wrote that she will “carefully review” the legislation if it reaches her desk.

If Weprin’s bill passes, New York would become one of several states with such a requirement. Alaska, Florida, Illinois, and Mississippi already do so. Other states, including Minnesota, Tennessee, Virginia and Idaho, have DMV machines in prisons that incarcerated people can use to apply for state IDs.

The bill does not address jails in New York City or upstate counties. Asked by New York Focus, Weprin said he would introduce legislation to include them as well. “There’s no reason why it shouldn’t apply to them,” he said.

‘You need ID to obtain ID’

ID cards are often lost during the process of transferring people and their belongings between the many institutions of the criminal justice system – police precincts, courts, jails and prisons.

This summer, Ronald Jackson was released from prison after a Manhattan judge threw out his 2014 conviction and ordered a new trial. Jackson had been incarcerated for nine years, most of which he spent at Fishkill Correctional Facility, a prison in Dutchess County.

When he was transferred from Fishkill to Rikers Island in June 2020 to await the court date at which his conviction was overturned, Jackson was only allowed to bring a small bag with him. He left four other bags of personal property at Fishkill, containing clothes, shoes, legal documents and, perhaps most importantly, his Social Security card, birth certificate and COVID vaccination card.

When he was released, he called Fishkill to ask about getting his belongings – but he was told the prison staff had lost track of them, he said.

Jackson was first told the bags had been sent to Rikers, then that they were still at Fishkill. Next, his caseworker at the Fortune Society, a reentry organization, was told that they were at another prison, Downstate Correctional Facility. Four months after his release, Jackson still hasn’t been able to locate them.

“Nobody knows where the bags are,” Jackson said. “They’ve been giving everybody the run around.”

Asked about Jackson’s belongings, a spokesperson for the state Department of Corrections again claimed they were stored at the Fishkill facility and that attempts to contact Jackson were unsuccessful.

Without ID, Jackson has been unable to get paid work, despite getting offers from multiple employers including Amazon, Target, and CVS, he said.

“I got plenty of job offers, but I didn’t have my identification,” he said. “I’m stunted. A part time job would keep me going.”

In August, Jackson attempted to go to a Social Security Administration office to see about replacing his Social Security card, but it was closed due to the pandemic. “They wouldn’t even let nobody in the building,” he said.

But getting an appointment would only be the first step in the process. What makes obtaining a new ID so difficult, Gaffney said, is that “you need ID to obtain ID.”

Replacing a lost ID involves a kafkaesque process of persuading any one of half a dozen agencies to issue a document that proves one’s identity and can be used to obtain further ID – and running against the wall that those documents usually require other documentation.

Getting on the first rung of the ladder can involve convoluted schemes. One person interviewed last year by New York Focus recounted purchasing a fake ID with his real information, and then using that fake ID to acquire a replacement birth certificate.

Gaffney had better luck than most – but it still took him two months after his release to cobble together a doctor’s letter, a letter from his halfway house, his furlough papers and other documents from his incarceration that added up to enough documentation to get a Social Security card.