While most students sit in the comfort of a classroom on a traditional university campus, the college experience for prison inmates looks a little bit different.
Omi Hodwitz holds a teaching position at the University of Idaho and has been working tirelessly with the university alongside the Idaho Department of Corrections to provide educational opportunities to incarcerated Idahoans. She’s also a former inmate.
"I actually applied for college while I was serving a sentence, and that changed my life dramatically,” Hodwitz said. “I haven’t gotten involved with the criminal justice system since then and it opened a bunch of doors for me, and I wanted to offer the same opportunity for incarcerated folks.”
Hodwitz now has a Ph.D. in criminology and focuses her efforts on helping others on the path to receiving higher education while serving their time in prison. Hodwitz said she received full support from the Idaho Department of Corrections and the University of Idaho to start the program.
“Both institutions recognized the value of advanced education in prison,” Hodwitz said. "So, I didn't actually meet any hurdles or encounter any roadblocks that were insurmountable.”
She believes these courses are a great way for incarcerated individuals to return to the community, and it can help make communities safer places to live.
“On a macro level, looking at the health and well being and security of the general population, it's a win-win in the sense that if we can offer more educational opportunities to incarcerated individuals, that gives them more opportunities once they reenter the community, which helps keep them from having to engage in reoffending or recidivist behaviors they're more eligible for employment opportunities and things of that sort,” Hodwitz said.
Now, thanks to Hodwitz, inmates can receive higher education courses and opportunities they weren’t given before, paving an easier path back into their communities.