Last April, members of the Paper Prisons Initiative of Santa Clara University, founded by Prof. Colleen Chien, submitted a research paper to the International Journal on Advances in Internet Technology journal. The research paper focused on the development of the Reentry ID tool that guides the state ID application process.
The research paper was accepted by the journal to be published this year, and the team was invited to present the paper at the ICDS 2022 conference: the Sixteenth International Conference on Digital Society. The conference was held in Porto, Portugal from June 26, 2022 to June 30, 2022.
<Porto, Portugal>
A part-time 3L law student, Ju Young Park, who is working on the tool as a technical program manager, presented the paper on behalf of the Paper Prisons Initiative in Porto.
<Ju Young Park presenting the research paper at the conference>
The conference was held for 5 days, and the Reentry ID tool research paper was presented on the 4th day of the conference, June 29, 2022. Ju did a demo of the Reentry ID tool and explained the architecture of the tool that warehouses required documents for all 50 states’ DMVs in a single database. The paper was recognized by scholars at the conference because it focused on empathy and systematic problems to obtain an ID in the U.S. with a record, and suggested a solution using technology. The conference representatives commented at the end of the session that they expect to see more research papers that bring innovative technology for social impact like the Reentry ID tool.
<Conference being held in Porto, Portugal from June 26, 2022 to June 30, 2022>
Every year, more than 650,000 individuals are released from prisons. For many of them, their state IDs may no longer be valid when they are released. Lack of state IDs is a significant hurdle for them after release because state identification is required for many basic life necessities like housing, employment, medical care, etc. The Reentry ID tool was built to provide helpful guidance to persons released from prison for their successful reentry into society.
<The Reentry ID tool>
