The Best Part of Prison

An unvarnished, deeply human account of one man’s time in prison . . . and his unexpected journey to healing, accountability, and personal transformation. At 18, Jesse Crosson was a lost cause. Strung out on drugs, he committed a robbery-gone-wrong and later a nonfatal shooting. And Jesse was sentenced to 32 years—nearly twice as long as the high point of the sentencing guidelines. No one expected his story to end well. But for Jesse, imprisonment turned out to be a new beginning. In The Best Part of Prison, Jesse explores the ways in which the prison system can hurt and alienate the people it’s meant to rehabilitate, including the inhumane conditions that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. Incarcerated in four different prisons and living elbow-to-elbow with countless people convicted of a wide variety of crimes, Jesse was braced to experience the worst in people—but he didn’t. Instead, Jesse found teachers, friends, trauma survivors struggling to heal, victims asking for change, and serial killers who became mentors. Jesse witnessed firsthand what it means to do harm, to make amends, and to be human. Now a pardoned social justice advocate and the founder of The Second Chancer Foundation, Jesse shares a story that exposes the inequity of today’s criminal justice system, champions the importance of rehabilitation and restorative justice, and celebrates the hope that can be found in the grimmest environments. Electric and deeply felt—from the sound of Jesse’s first cell door closing to the wonder of seeing the night sky for the first time in years—The Best Part of Prison deftly taps into human experience to remind us that we are, all of us, more than our worst moments.