'Corrections' course puts Ohio State University students inside prison

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — Monday marked the official end of the semester at Ohio State University, 15 campus students spent it studying in a prison through the Ohio Prison Education Exchange project.

The students met with 15 inmates for a class called, "Corrections," which is focused on understanding the judicial system and preparing all 30 students for the future.

What has the look and feel of a traditional classroom sits inside a prison — the London Correctional Institution.

"So really what we're doing is we're looking at there are corrections system, but we're looking at together," said Dr. Terrance Hinton, who teaches "Corrections" at Ohio State University.

For two years now, Hinton's classroom has been inside correctional facilities. Campus students spend a semester alongside, who Hinton calls "incarcerated students." The incarcerated students are serving time for various offenses. The focus is restorative justice.

"The question I always ask myself is, 'What does that look like for individuals when they are coming out?' and that kind of led me down a different path of looking at public safety from the other end of the spectrum and really assisting individuals when they come out of prison," said Hinton.

Once a week, the students work on the same assignments, engage in conversation and learn about life from another person's perspective.

"From that understanding, comes empathy, comes humanizing," said Hinton. "And that's what I like about this classroom. It's really humanization — these individuals are talking. We find out we have a lot in common and once we have that bond, we can learn about the corrections system together."

"One of our major goals as a department is to bring hope back to the correctional facilities and drive that into not only our population but the community as well," said Warden Michael DeMartino.

"Roughly 90% of the individuals that are incarcerated are coming back to our communities and we want them to come back better when they came here. We want them to have more resources, more tools and better cognitive behavior. So, we really try to drive that here at this facility.

"You paid for your crime. And when you get out, there's stuff that's available to you. You have a purpose. That's a huge part of rehabilitation is making sure someone has hope and purpose to be successful when they reach the community."