WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) – The Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Office is rolling out a new service for inmates that provides a hand up and not a hand out.

The goal is to keep them from winding up behind bars again.

Right now, 60 percent of inmates return to the Sedgwick County jail two years after being released.

Detention center officials hope a new mobile ID program will help change that.

“If I don’t have my ID, you’re not going to hire me. I can’t get a job,” said Elmer Marshall, an inmate.

An ID card is something you may not realize the significance of on a daily basis.

“If you go and want to buy a home, if you want to go buy a car, you need ID,” said Marshall.

For inmates, IDs can become a lifeline when they re-enter a world outside bars, including when it comes to finding work.

Lucas Arnold knows the challenge all to well, making some poor decisions in order to make money.

“If we’re not able to leave here and go straight to work, we’re going to go back to what we already know, which is either selling drugs, stealing, robbing, whatever it takes,” he said.

Wednesday, Arnold and other inmates, will have the opportunity to sign up for a state issued ID card through a mobile cart that will be brought to the jail.

“That way, when they come out and into our society, they’re shopping at our stores with us, they’re contributing to our society,” said Capt. Jared Schechter, of the Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Office.

And, according to Schechter, will in turn ease the overcrowding issue at the detention center.

“Taxpayers aren’t having to spend the money to hold them in the jail or hold them in other counties, because we have more inmates,” said Schechter.

But the main focus, is giving inmates like Arnold a second chance.

“It builds the confidence to be able to walk out of here and say I got this,” said Arnold.

This is a pilot program, but detention officials say they hope to be able to provide the service every month.

