Professor of Law, Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law
Arizona State University (ASU)Criminal Justice, criminal law, Gender Studies, Prison
Valena Beety's areas of expertise include criminal law, criminal justice, LGBTQ, gender studies, wrongful convictions, forensic evidence, prosecutors and prison. She is a professor of law at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University and the deputy director of the Academy for Justice, a criminal justice center connecting research with policy reform. Professor Beety is the author of "Manifesting Justice: Wrongly Convicted Women Reclaim Their Rights" and the co-editor of the "Wrongful Convictions Reader" and the "Scientific Evidence Treatise." She has been featured in local and national publications such as the New York Times and USA Today.
Crime, Prison, Terrorism
Omi Hodwitz’s expertise sheds light on the nuances of terrorism and crime. Before joining University of Idaho, she worked as a researcher at the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism at University of Maryland. Hodwitz’s research interests include the role of non-combatants in the escalation of terrorist activity, and she has conducted fieldwork in conflict regions such as Pakistan and Turkey.
Additionally, she has worked extensively to compile the most comprehensive database of missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and two-spirits (MMIWG2) in the United States and Canada.
Hodwitz also provided the spark for getting U of I involved in the Inside Out Prison Exchange Program. The worldwide program allows U of I students to experience education in our prison system and correctional residents a glimpse at their own potential. As of 2022, thanks in part to Hodwitz’s leadership, incarcerated individuals in Idaho now have greater access to higher education, using the U.S. Department of Education’s Second Chance Pell Experiment.
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