A team of Penn students has proposed a policy initiative to help re-entering citizens access an ID as soon as they are released from prison. Their proposal, also designed to combat Philadelphia’s recidivism crisis, won the 2016 Penn Public Policy Challenge, presented last month by the Fels Institute of Government. The Philadelphia Individual Dignity Project team proposal seeks to implement a pilot program at the Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility in Northeast Philadelphia that would enable eligible exiting prisoners to receive a state-issued ID card on site upon release. The team received $5,000 to help develop the pilot plan.

The team is comprised of Salomon Moreno-Rosa, a dual-degree candidate at the Fels Institute of Government and the Graduate School of Education; Samantha Waxman, a student in the master of science in social policy program at the School of Social Policy & Practice; and Sarai Williams, a master’s dual-degree candidate in the city & regional planning and landscape architecture departments at PennDesign. They were among only ten teams of students from across the country to move on to the National Invitational Public Policy Challenge earlier this month.