Name: Pamela Winn
What city and state do you live in?: Atlanta, Georgia
Describe your current work/workplace: I served a 78month federal sentence while pregnant, shackled which caused me to fall and miscarriage, then placed in solitary confinement which motivated me to become the Founder of RestoreHER US.America, a policy advocacy reentry organization led by and for justice-involved women of color, based in Georgia. RestoreHER addresses the social determinants of criminalization and intersectionality of social inequities through education, leadHERship, and policy change to protect the dignity, reproductive health, and restore the rights of all women directly impacted by incarceration, convictions, and/or trauma. Our mission is to enhance the lives of directly impacted women and work in partnership with those women to end the vicious cycle that leads to mass incarceration for women of color and prison birth in the south. RestoreHER was created based upon the lived experiences of racial, economic, and gender iniquities faced by justice-involved women of color and those directly impacted by trauma with a focus on pregnant women in the south during their personal plight through the criminal justice system. We believe that policy advocacy is a stapler of the diversion and reentry process in that, policy change is imperative to eradicate intersectionality and the social determinants of criminalization that prompt confinement and unsuccessful reentry, leading to correctional control and increased recidivism which both feed mass incarceration. We address these issues within the criminal justice system and in the reentry process through policy advocacy by ensuring that marginalized women lead the conversations with access to resources, programming, and the support needed to overcome the challenges related to incarceration and its collateral consequences. RestoreHER acknowledges that directly impacted women are the “experts” utilizing the methodology and research we term “the participatory process” to create an infrastructure and build capacity forming a framework for harm reduction as well as dismantle oppressive laws and systems locally, statewide, and nationally through education, advocacy, and women’s leadership. RestoreHER is the leader in shackling and solitary confinement legislation for women. RestoreHER wrote the language for women in First Step Act, lead the unanimous passing of HB345, Dignity GA, and has assisted in the passing of Dignity legislation in more than 12 states thought the country.
What made you want to join CLI?: To collaborate with justice impacted women to build up the movement and our voices to abolish the system that perpetuates harm to our women, destroys our families, and seeks to keep us enslaved.
What are you most looking forward to as a part of CLI?: I’m most looking forward to community and learning from the other ladies.
What do you wish people knew about women who are incarcerated/formerly incarcerated/their families?: The price women pay, highly exceeds crime and far exceeds the sentence.
Who is your biggest supporter?: My son, Shaquille Winn-King
What is your favorite form of self-care?: Rose petal bubble baths
Anything else you would like to share?: I don’t do this work, I AM THIS WORK! My goal is to end prison birth in the U.S.!