Petrina Williams remembers a lot of numbers: 33907-007 was her prison number; 7 was the number of months until she started looking pregnant from behind bars; 778 was the number of days she spent in prison; 28 was her room number at NEW; 10 was the number of months she lived at NEW; 2 was the number of years she lived in an apartment until she was able to buy her own home.
“I have realized a lot of dreams I had for myself,” said Petrina who since leaving NEW in 2008, earned her bachelor's degree in psychology and mental health, her Master’s in social work, and is now a licensed independent, clinical social worker with a private practice called Miracles In Motion Therapy and Consulting LLC.
Growing up in Georgia, Petrina always had dreams, she said. She wanted to be an anesthesiologist and for three years she attended Spelman College, a private, historically black women’s college in Atlanta. But she got off track in her 20s, when she started doing drugs to numb the pain of unresolved childhood trauma. (She was molested as a child.) When she was arrested in an alley in DC for selling drugs to an undercover cop, she remembers she was wearing a white linen suit. She wasn’t a big time drug dealer, she just had an addiction problem. But it was easier for society to lock her up instead of addressing the real issues.
Petrina found out she was three months pregnant with her third child when she entered prison. When she appeared in front of a judge, despite her condition, she was shackled and handcuffed, shuffling up the aisle to the bench. She remembers telling the judge that she had researched a program for pregnant felons that she hoped that he would let her enroll in. The judge remembered her from past offenses and told her, “I knew you were educated and were gonna come in here with some eloquent speech! You and your baby will both be going to federal prison!”
Petrina laughs recalling the judge’s words. “I ain’t mad,” Petrina says. “I get chills just thinking about it. I don’t know how many people are grateful for incarceration.” Prison, Petrina says, was a blessing because she was forced to get clean. She gave birth in handcuffs after two epidurals, and emergency C section to a healthy baby boy, Jordan. She fed him his first bottle with one wrist still handcuffed to the bed and when she returned to prison, Jordan went to Philly to live with her sister.
In prison, Petrina was motivated and she took every opportunity to work on herself. “Your release plan starts the day you enter prison,” she says. She took classes that were available, she advocated for herself to get the better prison jobs, she attended counseling. She prepared herself to get out and start realizing the dreams that she always had.
When she was released from prison, she came to NEW and started the reunification process with her kids, Albert and Jordan. She saved money. She spent every free weekend visiting her son in Philly. She worked with NEW and remembers fondly the NEW staff: Ms Renee, Ms Courtney, Ms May Ewald, Ms Rori. She remembers “bugging” NEW Executive Director Wanda Steptoe in her office often. “I was trying to put my life back together and I was open to whatever resources and support I could get. I started to accept that I was lovable. The NEW women and staff loved on me and convinced me I was lovable. I would cry after coming home from Philly and NEW would rock me.”
Petrina needed the support, guidance and LOVE of NEW to help her put together a framework to help her get her life back. “They didn’t judge me for the missteps I had taken. They solidified for me that I was a good mother and a good person.”
Today Petrina serves on the New Endeavors board. She is a founding member of the WIRE, a network of formerly incarcerated women helping other formerly incarcerated women. She is a home owner and she lives with her 15 year-old son, Jordan. And has applied to earn her PhD from Catholic University in trauma research and the devastation of incarceration with a focus on pregnant women in prison.
“I am so blessed that I have everything I have always wanted, I’m walking in all those blessings right now. I’m so excited because I didn’t know how I was gonna get out of that. I love NEW. New helped me understand that I was important. I was more hurt than I thought, and I think I focused more on how did I get here for the longest time and not how do I get out of here. Now, I want to be that safe place for someone else.”