Almost half of people released from Hawaiʻi’s state prisons between November 2023 and October 2024 did not have a valid state ID, according to data the corrections department reported to the Legislature. About 95% of people released from jail during that same period did not have one. For instance, Simoné Nanilei Kamaunu, who was incarcerated for a parole violation, left prison in 2022 with a $500 check and no way to cash it. She’d lost her social security card before she was locked up, her driving permit had expired and her prison identification card didn’t count for anything outside of the Women’s Community Correctional Center. Without a state ID, it took her three months to open a bank account to deposit the money, which she had received from a nonprofit for completing her GED while in prison. The slow implementation of the law means that every year hundreds of people are being released without the identification they need for a successful re-entry: to find work, secure housing or open a bank account.
More than a dozen states require, by law, that corrections agencies help inmates obtain identification prior to release. Hawaiʻi’s 2017 law requires the corrections department to inform people in prisons and jails that they can receive help getting identification documents while behind bars, including a state ID, birth certificate and social security card. But more than seven years later, the number of people leaving prisons with the documents they need to function in society has barely budged, the Associated Press reports. Tommy Johnson, the state DOC's director, doubts the data and places part of the blame on the inmates preparing to leave. “It’s not from our lack of trying; you can’t make them fill out the documents for a (ID) card,” Johnson told Civil Beat. “A lot of the folks don’t want to provide that information to us.” Johnson also noted that the numbers may be inaccurate because people might not have had their IDs with them when they were arrested, and those documents are being held for them by someone on the outside. He also cited challenges coordinating with other government agencies and obtaining the equipment necessary to collect inmates’ photos and signatures for their IDs.