From Prison to Purpose – My interview with Jesse Crosson, founder of Second Chancer Foundation

Jesse Crosson turned his life around after 19 years in prison and now helps others do the same. In this inspirational episode, we talk about his journey from incarceration to finding purpose through the Second Chancer Foundation. Jesse shares how mindset shifts enabled him to elevate beyond his circumstances and become a force for good. Listen as he explains the power of education, reading, resilience, travel, and community in transforming lives after prison. An uplifting conversation about the potential for positive change.

Transcript

Felicia Shelton:
Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for once again joining me here at In My Travels. My name is Felicia Shelton. I am your host here at In My Travels. Thank you so much for joining me here once again today. And I will say this each and every time that I have a guest here. We have a very special guest and we have a very special point of view.

And I am so glad that our guest today Jesse Crosson has agreed to meet with me and share his story. This podcast is about travel and we’re going to talk about different aspects of travel. But before you know, we begin I just want to say and I made a point of this in the previous interview do not feel that you have to Book a flight to anywhere overseas or anything like that. I want you to think of travel as a means of experience to have new experiences, to connect with people that you would not usually have the ability or opportunity to meet. So that could happen in your very own backyard, in your city, in your neighborhood, in your state, et cetera. I just wanted to make sure that I say that again, because that was a very good point that our previous guest made, and I want to share that with you here.

Now, let’s get to meet Jesse Crosson, someone that I had the opportunity and have the opportunity almost daily when he’s not traveling all around the country to talk about the very special work that he’s doing. I am just really grateful for you coming here to be on this podcast today. And of course, I will let you introduce yourself, ladies and gentlemen, Jesse Crosson.

Jesse Crosson:
Thank you, Felicia. My name is Jesse Crosson. I’m the executive director of Second Chancer Foundation. I do a lot of travel, both for work, to network, to try to develop strategic partnerships and try to follow, basically developmental work, getting funding. But also just as a personal quest, because I was locked behind a wall and behind a fence for a long time, and it was really important to me to have the opportunity to see the world and meet people and have experiences that I wasn’t able to have.

Felicia Shelton:
That’s right. So can you go a little bit deeper with that? Because locked behind a wall could be, you know, you could be a lonely housewife somewhere, a lonely househusband. What are you talking about specifically?  

Jesse Crosson: From now on, if I’m going to use a euphemism, I’m going to tell people I was a lonely husband or househusband for 19 years.

Just after my 18th birthday, I committed a number of crimes, a robbery and a nonfatal shooting, and I was sent to prison. And rightfully so. I was absolutely guilty and I absolutely needed to be put away. And originally I was sentenced to serve 32 years in prison. And that was more than double the original guidelines.

It was twice the high point of the modified guidelines. And so it was a kind of a quest of trying to figure out who I was and what I was going to do and how I was going to cope with both the harm that I’d done and the consequences of my actions. And weirdly that kind of, that collapse and that, that environment that seemed so inhospitable became the place where I kind of began my transformation and became the person that I am today.

So much so that after 19 years, Governor Northam then the governor of Virginia, granted me a conditional pardon and released me. Basically saying that I had met the threshold of extraordinary circumstances and had done extraordinary work while I was inside and he believed that I would do extraordinary work when I got out, which as a, you know, as a 30 something guy who thought he had 10 years left in prison and really felt kind of hopeless because of recent, recent things that have transpired and COVID lockdowns it was a shock and it’s been something that I’ve had to work to grow toward and grow to understand and hopefully grow to embody over the last two and a half years.

Felicia Shelton:
That’s amazing. Number one. I mean, really, I, you know, sometimes I use that word a lot, but I have yet to meet someone who’s had the experience that you’ve had. And like you said, the work that you’re doing as a result of your incarceration, it’s just, it’s It’s amazing. It’s amazing. It’s amazing. It’s amazing.

It’s amazing. It’s more than commendable. I really respect the work that you’re doing and how you’re not only helping people to have second chances, those persons who have been incarcerated, but you’re also educating me and other people who don’t know or maybe even haven’t Thought about what it is like for that person who was once imprisoned and now how are they navigating their life of freedom outside of prison walls? It’s not just okay, you know, you’re no longer in prison and now figure it out There are many many things that I’m sure that someone has to figure out housing You know jobs, of course, but just everyday I think relationships and just navigating, just being able to travel. By foot or by car, just having that level of freedom again. What does that look like? 

Jesse Crosson:
Yeah, I mean, there are a lot of topics in there. I would say it was a shock, you know, emotionally and even intellectually to try to comprehend the world that I was walking into because it was a very alien world.

It’s kind of like, you know, being put in cryostasis for years and then coming out like any one of those movies. And then the. The barriers that are very real. We have this idea that, okay, someone did their time in prison, now it’s over. But it really isn’t. You know, just very specifically for travel, when I first got out, any time I left the 50 mile range around Lynchburg, and I didn’t live in Lynchburg, I had to get permission to leave.

Every time I had to go to work, I had to get permission to leave. Like, now That was modified to allow me to travel freely within the state, but every time I leave the state, I still need permission. So when I’m driving up to Pennsylvania next weekend, I need permission when I leave, where I’m staying, and when I come back.

And that continues to be the case until I got off probation in August of this year. But then you have the barriers, like you said, around housing or employment. It was easier for me to buy a house. than it was for me to rent an apartment. And, weirdly, I actually did them in that order because I had a free place to say, somebody said, hey, I love your story, I want to set you up.

Then my ex and I bought a house together, and nobody did a background check, nobody cared about my history. But when we broke up and I wanted to move in town, and we actually both moved in town, all of a sudden my record was an issue. It was okay for me to own property, but there were a number of places that say, hey, sorry, if you have a criminal record, you need not apply.

Oh, if you have a criminal record, like, yeah, you can apply, but chances are we’re not going to take you. There was actually only one local group, and it took a personal reach out from somebody there. to even basically open that door because they said, Hey, we believe in this, but you need somebody to vouch for you.

Like, that’s the only way we’re going to give you a place. And I was really fortunate that I actually found a place on Facebook marketplace. And I love the guy’s approach. He said, I don’t do credit checks. I don’t care about your background. I don’t want to know anything about you. If you give me three people to vouch for you and they say that basically you’re a good character and you can pay your bills, I’ll give you a chance.

And I appreciate that because he could have, he could have been even more strict, but what he’s found is that’s actually a better policy for him, which interestingly, he said, I don’t want to have someone who’s prohibited based on their past actions. I want to have somebody who’s going to be the best tenant I can possibly have based on who they are today and who can vouch for them.

So it ended up working out to my benefit. And yeah, I still continue to struggle to navigate, you know, we’ve talked actually a fair amount about relationships and navigating relationships as in some ways a very grown man and at the same time kind of a teenager still. Like, there have been parts of my life, especially the solo parts of my life, that I feel very mature and very capable and very developed.

And then when it comes to relationships, I feel like I regress immediately. As soon as the intimacy, the intensity is turned up, I just don’t know what to do. And I’m working to kind of allow those parts of myself to mature and kind of Seeing it as like an emotional bootcamp of like, let me, let me figure all this out.

Let me, let me compact all that learning and growing and exploring into a short period of time so that I can catch up if that’s actually possible. 

Felicia Shelton:
And that’s, like you said, I think, one of our first conversations was about relationships and I don’t know if I gave you relationship advice, but we definitely had a conversation about, you know, I, I believe one of the things that really struck me about you was when you said that, you know,

I.

I promised myself or I made a promise to myself, I believe you said that I was going to, I was going to work on myself for a year and I’m not going to get into, any relationships, etc. I need to focus on me. I need to focus on my goals, etc. As always, life has other plans, that’s right, so somebody comes into your life and even though you’re just like, okay, I said this to myself, but this person is maybe someone that I need to to be with, or, you know, at least to explore the possibility of being with. You raise a really great point about, you know, you were incarcerated, I think, after your 18th birthday, barely.

And now, You know, 19 years later, now you’re free to get into relationships, leave relationships. That’s a very, very good point that you said that you feel like, you know, you can regress back to that 18 year old. Do you think that’s a And so much has changed the really the relationships between or the dynamics between men and women in that period of time.

So what was okay when you were 18, of course, you know, in that stage and state of mind is no longer. 

Jesse Crosson:
I would agree, I mean the whole world has changed from the political sphere to the social sphere to relationships and navigating that in a way that is very kind of conscious and intentional and I know a lot of people who get out who haven’t changed at all, I mean their mindset, their perspective hasn’t changed so they get out and they seem like troglodytes, they seem like people who are from a very different era and the way they carry themselves or the way they act is not appropriate by modern standards and I, that’s obviously a failure of each individual but I think it’s also a failure of our system to not Emphasize the importance of that kind of growth in education.

And I think we do it in school as well. We focus a whole lot on biology and mathematics and history. We don’t focus on life skills or emotional regulation or some of the basic things that are actually a factor in every area of our lives. And I hear this a lot because I talk about kids in the juvenile center, people in the jail that we work with.

People say, well that’s not our job, that’s the family’s job. And it’s, it’s just the ultimate arrogance to say that and to assume that everyone has had the same opportunities and support that the person saying it has. Because some of the people that I talk to on a regular basis or some of the people that I met on the inside, Their family experience was so traumatic and so abusive and so horrible that the idea that someone would have the nerve to say, well, that’s not our job, the family should do it.

Like, if you could imagine, if you could experience one moment of this child’s life, of what they endured, of what they had to survive and are lucky to have survived, the idea of putting the onus on that family is just divorced from reality. It’s really frustrating to me. But yeah, I’m continuing to try to grow and explore and figure those things out because I was very fortunate to have those relationships.

And as you talk about travel, a lot of the growth and the experience that I have is really a result of travel that I took while I was behind bars. And that sounds strange, but I had pen pals all over the world. I read books from the past and the present written, you know, in every scene imaginable. And what I experienced was kind of a broader view of the world than I had ever experienced before, even when I was free, because I was kind of imprisoned before I was like locked in this very small mindset.

I was locked in this very small place. I was locked in not realizing just how big the world was or just how, how much I could experience the world. Yes. And ironically, being locked in a cell gave me the perspective shift of realizing just how much I could experience and just how wide the world was and just how far I could go.

And that really gave me the freedom to explore and learn more during those years. And I probably would have had, I not been inside. 

Felicia Shelton:
Great point. And we touched on that in the previous episode, how, you know, if you don’t have the means, whatever that means to travel, you can read books, you know, when I was a little kid many moons ago my exposure to the world was through my mother primarily, but both of my parents were voracious readers.

So, you know, you kind of mimic what you see your mom and dad do and, my mother took us to the library at a very young age so that we could have our name on our first official document called the library card. And, but even in the house, you know, this is way before cable, et cetera. So we had one little black and white TV, but we had Life magazine.

The Encyclopedia Britannica, we had the life size when Ebony Magazine was sort of in that huge life magazine format, and that was the world. That’s how I traveled,

so from your perspective, you you know, what I read about you, you said you were out of control and actually prison helped to give you some sort of structure because now, you know, even though that, Your movement is restricted. It did not restrict your mind. 

Jesse Crosson:
And I would say the kind of Unexpected thing was prison really didn’t give me the structure, but it gave me the time to create the structure It’s one of the things I expected and one of the reliefs I initially felt was oh I’m at least gonna go to a place that’s structured that makes sense that like I can understand Because it was the chaos of the world and the freedom of the world that I didn’t know how to cope with And I went to a place that had just as much freedom but within smaller walls.

There was no structure. There was no order. There was no I imagine I was going to go to a place that was focused on training and rehabilitating, and that wasn’t the case at all. I went to a place that was focused on warehousing. But within that, I had the time, and I lacked the distractions. Because out in the world, you know, at 18 years old or 17 years old, I was getting high and I was chasing girls and I was getting in trouble.

In prison All that is not possible, or the things that you can do just get really old. There are only so many times I can get up and look myself in the mirror after engaging in a really fruitless, kind of meaningless pursuit. Oh yeah, I got high again yesterday, what for? Like, it just, it was enough of a shock to my system that I realized I wanted to do something different.

And it took me getting to kind of the end of my rope. It took me exhausting all those possibilities, or those kind of like endless, or those fruitless possibilities, to say, I want to do things differently. And then coming up with a system where I said, hey, I can escape into reading. Initially it wasn’t a healthy thing, it was an escape.

I don’t want to be here, I don’t want to be around these people, I don’t want to be in this place. Of course. But it became a balance of, okay, I have to set a structure for myself so I can get two books from the library every week. I’m gonna get a non fiction that will educate me and a fiction that I’m gonna enjoy.

But the rule is I gotta get at least halfway through the non fiction before I can start the fiction. So that way I know I’m gonna make sure that I’m reading. And every week I would do the same thing. And that mean I read two to three books a week for 19 years and I got a greater view of the world than I ever could have imagined.

Felicia Shelton:
Two to three books, you said every week, for 19 years. Yeah. That’s incredible. And I like that structure. So you said halfway in order through the nonfiction that would allow you to then you say, Okay, now I can is like a reward.

Jesse Crosson: And sometimes I would read the fiction book that night and that was it and then I’d be mad because I had to go back to the nonfiction.

Other times I could balance it out. Yeah. Really just depended on where my mindset was at. But it also depended because there were times, there were topics that I had never realized I was interested in. This is kind of an aside, but I just had a physics graduate student at Virginia Tech reach out because he’s really passionate about teaching physics to people who are incarcerated.

Cause his story was, hey, I was lost. Like I was, I was going to be one of those kids. And then I found physics. I fell in love with it. And now I’m here. Now I’m a graduate student. Now I’m working with professors and I’m teaching. And he said that changed my life and I want to do it for somebody else. And I found those odd topics on the inside that I never imagined I’d be interested in.

Kind of like social economics, I think is the thing that I’m most interested in, psychology. Because initially I went to psychology because it was a question of like, hey, what is wrong with me? Like, how did I do the things that I did? How did I end up here? Like, how is this even possible? I want to understand myself so I can stop doing the things I’ve been doing so I can change who I am so I can never commit this harm again.

And eventually became, okay, I want to understand myself better, but also I want to understand the people around me. And that turned into, let me look at sociology and social economics. Let me look at the larger, you know, not the individual, but like the larger forces. What’s really going on? Why are we in the place that we’re in as a society?

Why do we have an astronomical recidivism rate? Why do we also have a dramatic divide between poverty and riches? Like what’s, what’s going on? And it was something that just fascinated me and I would find myself thrown into these books and these authors and these perspectives and these arguments and feeling engaged in a way that I never had in school because one of the problems that I had in school wasn’t that it was too hard.

It was that it was. Too easy. It was too boring. And I didn’t ever feel challenged. And when I would do, I would go get in trouble or start things to like have an engaging conversation or to have some excitement in my life. And once I found topics that I was interested in or I found authors that I felt challenged me or professors because I was able to get my bachelor’s degree while I was inside.

That’s right. I was able to have those conversations that felt like they kind of stimulated me in the way that I’d been missing all those years that I didn’t even know was possible. 

Felicia Shelton:
You know, when I read that you earned your bachelor’s degree inside, I remember it took me immediately back to, I think I was maybe 16 or 17 years old.

And I think I remember saying how unfair it is for someone who is in prison to be able to do that. Sure. Because there are, you know, people outside, you know, they don’t maybe have the money, etc. But it’s about, helping that person who is imprisoned to once, once they get out, this is their, you know, leg up or their opportunity to not just say, I’m starting here at ground zero and, you know, having no skills or, you know, having that experience.

I’m completely different and I’m going to be honest with you and everybody in here. Is that remember when you just spoke about how teachers would say or administrators, that’s the parents responsibility to do that.

I thought those things. Yeah. And I was, I was a French teacher. You know, my God, maybe just a couple of years ago, I don’t want to teach anymore here in the U. S., but that’s another story for another time. I did say, you know, what is happening at home? And the more I worked as a teacher, I said, oh yeah.

This kid, the reason why they’re hungry and they don’t want to pay, they’re, they’re not paying attention in class is because they really haven’t eaten in two days and their parents are most of the time they, one or two or both of the parents were incarcerated or they just had all kinds of, different problems.

And that’s the reason why this kid could, you know, give a toss about learning French. They’re tired, they’re hungry. And a lot of the kids that I taught had to get their little brother and sister because that they were the parents. So, I had to sit down with several of those students and they were honest with me and says, look, you know you know, Madam Shelton you know, I know you and I, we go, we, we go back and forth, but this is what’s happening at home.

And that humbled me and I said, Oh, I get it now. Because I don’t come from a perfect background either, but I definitely did not have to face the challenges that these kids face on a daily basis.

Jesse Crosson:
And the reality is it’s a systemic issue where the resources just aren’t put into the school and there there’s political opposition to people getting the help they need.

I mean, that’s right. It blows my mind. But and as to the college thing, I mean, that that’s probably the most common comment I get when I say I got my college degree. And I actually support education for everybody, I think college should be free not just for people in prison, but for everybody, but it actually wasn’t free for me.

You know, my mother had to kind of scrape and scramble, and that’s one of the reasons it took 15 years to get a four year degree. I did not know that. We couldn’t afford it, and she would pay for a class, and I would take that class, and we would have to deal with all the logistics of writing it out by hand, and sending it in by the mail, and then waiting for a response, which may take two weeks, and may take a month.

And it was kind of a long, laborious process. I think if anything it made it easier. I would have loved to have been able to just cram everything in because I had nothing else to do and I would have really packed it in. But instead it had to be kind of spread out and that made it easier because there was no pressure.

If anything it, I guess in a weird way it made it harder because I wouldn’t do things until my deadline but by the time the deadline was there I got it done. Yeah. And eventually toward the end, probably the last like five or ten years, I would just have my entire coursework done. I was done, you know, within maybe two or three weeks just because I had nothing to do but sit there all day and do my schoolwork.

Got it. But thankfully So theoretically, there’s a second chance Pell which gives people who are incarcerated access to money for at least up to an associates and arguably up to a masters but realistically up to a bachelors. But even though that federal money is available and has been available since last year, it is not being used by any states because none of the state accreditation agencies have done the work they have to do to actually accredit the schools that are going to take classes inside.

So there’s basically a, a, a blockage right now of federal money that could go towards educating incarcerated people that nobody’s addressing and very few people are talking about.  

Felicia Shelton: Why do you think that is? 

Jesse Crosson: Incompetence or a lack of, I mean, lack of motivation. This is not a very powerful political force like the people who are incarcerated who want an education represent a very, very small fraction of of anyone and they can’t vote except in maybe three states. So nobody really cares. 

Felicia Shelton:
I want to have you back because there are different topics in, you know, flying through my head. Did you travel as a child? 

Jesse Crosson: A little, I mean, a little bit. I hadn’t been a lot of places, but I my sister had a really bad trauma. My half sister, we were never really close, but in college she went into this beach and snow bomb lifestyle where she would spend the summer at the beach and the winter in Colorado snowboarding.

And I was able to go see her at the beach two times and I was able to go see her in Colorado three times. That was really significant. We had a couple family trips. I had family in, in South Carolina, North Carolina. So we would usually drive there at least once a year. And I would, I was lucky to travel more than most people.

I actually had a, a really bizarre incident where I was involved in a lawsuit that I, I can’t talk about because of NDA. Managed to get a lump sum of money and was able to go to the Caribbean as a, as a kid. As a 16 year old. Which I had never imagined that I would be able to do. But again, that wouldn’t have been an option otherwise.

It was just kind of a perfect storm of random happenstance. And I was able to go down there and be on the ocean and go scuba diving and have these experiences that absolutely opened my mind to the world. And while I was incarcerated, that’s what I thought about. I thought about how different my experience had been than most people.

You know, my dad actually locally used to be a, a social worker and a substance abuse counselor and he would work with at risk kids and he would always take them up to Humpback Rock, which is not far from here. It’s this beautiful, simple one mile hike that’s just gorgeous. And he would always take the kids up there at the end of the class and there would always be one or two kids who would just start crying because they said, I didn’t know this was here.

Like, they’re 15, 16, 17 years old and no one has ever taken them outside the city. No one has ever taken them outside of their neighborhood. They did not know that mountains were this close. And I actually remember there was a guy when I was in prison. We were sitting there looking out the window. He said, What are those?

What does that in the distance? I said, Those are mountains. He said, Wait, we have mountains in Virginia. And he literally had lived in a city and never left the city and never been the mountains and thought they were something you had in Colorado or in Asia or in Europe. He didn’t realize we had mountains in this very state.

Felicia Shelton:
Isn’t that incredible? I remember as a child, my first field trip, I’ll never forget it. We were going to Jamestown. And you know, my mother gets me up early and everything. And then the moment comes when you know, we arrive at the school and all the kids have to get on the bus and I, I’m going there right now.

I go on the bus, I’m, you know, I’m still, my eyes are still tracking, my mom. I’m just like, okay, I’m getting on the bus. I have to sit near the window. And I’m getting on the bus and I’m, you know waving to her. And I remember, oh my God, I’m going to separate myself. For my mother, what, you know, what’s going on.

I was, I was really scared. I was excited, but I was, I was scared as well. And then the bus pulls off and I said, okay, I don’t know where we’re going. Where is this Jamestown? Why do, why do I have to go? We get to Jamestown. It was amazing. I said, look at the, the cobblestones in the streets and look at all the trees. And I remember buying her, you know, a special, you know, special ceramic thing and going back and looking at her as I give her the gift. It was beautiful little mug. And my mom had never been to Jamestown and she told me this like many years later, she was like, I’ve never been to Jamestown, but I was happy to see my baby go to Jamestown. And then from that, I said, where else can I go? And you’re so right. I didn’t know there were mountains and things like this.

You don’t know until. You have the opportunity and I feel for the young girl that you said was crying, like, you know, I didn’t even know that, you know, Virginia was so beautiful. I really did not know. I mean, we have everything here. You know, we have the ocean. I’m from, you know, the beach area and we have the ocean.

We have the mountains. We have so much here just in Virginia. And. The, the question I want to ask you now, okay, we talked about you traveling as a child and what have you experienced? That’s, yeah, you’ll have to tell me a little bit more about that offline. But now that you are, you, you touched on this earlier, you’re, you’re free, but you, you have to ask permission.

Like you said, you’re on your way to Pennsylvania, et cetera. But how does it actually feel to be in control of your whereabouts? 

Jesse Crosson:
It feels bizarre, and initially it was overwhelming. So, you know, I hadn’t been on a plane or on a trip in 20 years by the time I went. And the first trip we took was, it was a storybook adventure that didn’t even make any sense.

This is back when Courtney and I were together. You know Courtney as well. And we’re still good friends. But our first trip wasn’t, oh, no, that’s not true. We did go to the beach in Virginia. So we did go down to Virginia Beach. But our first trip on an airplane, the first time on an airplane in 20 years, or probably more than 20 years at that point, was to fly out to L. A. And we’re thinking, okay, this could be fun. But we landed, we drove down to San Diego to see a friend of mine, we stayed with them for a few days. And then we came back to L. A. to stay in the Hollywood Hills with a producer and meet with writers and actresses. And it was just, it was not a normal trip to L. A. And that’s, that’s continued to be the case. I remember being so nervous the night before because I couldn’t imagine being in a different place the next day. I couldn’t imagine that my world would change so radically. That I’m here and I’m in Charlottesville and where am I going to be? Like, I, I couldn’t wrap my head around it.

And then all of a sudden I was in this different world. And I think what’s most bizarre is just like with the imposter syndrome I’ve struggled with in going into boardrooms or going into rooms with, with, you know successful entrepreneurs or with, with people running foundations. I’ve suddenly found myself feeling like I belong wherever I go and not that, that I’m deserving, but just that I can be anywhere.

I can interact with anyone. I can be comfortable in any space. And that was what I found. So I’m driving a rental car down one of the terrifying highways in LA down towards San Diego and then through LA and, and I felt okay. And then I actually, I, I was able to extend that to a two week trip. I went up to Sacramento to see a childhood friend and stayed with him.

And I was like, Oh my, I’m in like a place that I didn’t even know existed. I’d never heard of Sacramento until, you know, somebody had talked about it when I was in prison. And I’m here and it feels okay. Like, it was this, Really radical realization that I can occupy the space wherever I am and whoever I’m around and that that’s okay.

And I think for most of my life, I didn’t feel like I deserved it or I didn’t feel like I belonged or I didn’t feel like it was okay. So travel really gave me a greater sense of who I am and the sense of kind of like agency and not just control, but also like acceptance in whatever place I found myself.

Felicia Shelton: Great  point. Yes. Yes. And I love that you said that through travel, you now realize that you belong in every space that you’re in. That’s that, like I said, that’s another podcast, but it’s true. It’s true. Once you I’ve never, I haven’t been to California. Not yet. I’ve only been, up and down the east coast, and then to Texas, but I haven’t been west of Texas here in the US.

But, yeah, it gives you that confidence that you can speak with anyone you can relate to, because now that you’re stepping out your, you know, like you said, you went to California, and this was, you know, kind of bizarre, and you hadn’t heard of Sacramento, and you know, you were in in prison. And, and now you here you are.

You know, seeing people, meeting people, stepping into those boardrooms, like you said, you belong everywhere you are. And I tell that to anyone and everyone that is interested about travel. You belong there. I think, to me, the mere fact that you’re curious about it. Go there, read about it first, you know, I like, you know, do your research first because, you know it’s not lost on me and we’ll get into this now.

It’s not lost on me that today is a very, very special day. I am a free black American woman, lucky to be born in the era that I was born in. You are now a free white man and we’re Doing this podcast on a former plantation. It is Monticello. So there’s so much history and it’s never lost on me when I’m on Mulberry row here that people who look like me did not have agency over their own bodies and their thoughts, etc.

But now here we are in the time that we are and we can go and do and see whatever we want to see. 

Jesse Crosson:
It’s, it’s been bizarre. That’s been something I’ve struggled with, with this kind of learned helplessness of, even though there was no larger structure, there were times where I was told where to go or what to do or what I could say or what I couldn’t say.

I was very much controlled. And to be in the world where that’s not the case, where I get to make choices, where I get to determine where I’m going, I remember the first night when I got out, because I only had an hour and a half’s notice that I was getting out. There was no planning, there was no knowing ahead of time.

Felicia Shelton: I remember this story. Please go there. 

Jesse Crosson:
But so they, they called me to the counselor’s office with an hour and a half’s notice and told me I was going home. And I had applied for a petition for clemency two and a half years before, and I had some inkling that maybe it would get looked at or maybe it would be granted, but it was just out of the blue.

And With the snap of the fingers, I literally went from living in a dormitory with 81 other people with open toilets, and open sinks, and open showers, to walking out the front gate, to seeing my mother who I hadn’t seen in a year and a half, and seeing Courtney, who despite the fact that we were in a relationship, we had never met in person.

So it almost felt like this delusional thing, it was, we were living in some fantasy world that all of a sudden was very real and in 3D and after the adventures of that day, we went home and To me, it was the biggest day ever. Like there was no, everybody else went to sleep. And I just remember being like, how can you sleep?

Won’t you stay awake with me? And I went and I sat on the porch and I remember I closed the door. I turned all the lights off and all I could hear was, was nature. And I’d never been outside at night for that long. I mean, I may have gone from the law library where it went back to the building, or I might have been called out for for maintenance, or I may have been doing, you know, some some work at night, but I was sitting there and I just remember this wave of emotions from gratitude to sadness to grief to joy, just everything and just the flush of the experience that I don’t even know how to describe over the course of that night.

And then the freedom to realize, like, I just walked out this door and I’m sitting here. Like, I can, I can open the screen door and I can go wander into the woods if I want. I can go jump in the lake. I can go back inside and get ice cream, which I did. But it, it struck me. And there were times where I would just get up for weeks and just walk outside.

And just stand there. Hot, cold, raining, it didn’t matter. There was this freedom to just walk outside, to open a door, and be on whichever side of it I wanted, that I had never experienced, or that I hadn’t experienced in 20 years. And it was so gratifying, and it’s something that I don’t ever really want to lose.

And one of the things that I’ve really tried to pay attention to is the ways in which I’ve become acclimated to the world. And as beneficial as that is, the, the kind of like gratitude and awe and wonder that I may have lost when it’s no longer a big deal to be able to get up and go outside, I’ve lost something that I think is really important.

And it’s not that I want to stay scared or kind of institutionalized, but I want to stay connected to that wonder into that joy. And so I do little activities every day to try to remind myself of that. Like what? So I have a routine. I’ll get up in the morning, and I meditate, and I’ll get I do I started on this workout fanatic thing, so I’ll, I’ll, I’ll take the branched chain amino acids, and I’ll have that, and then I’ll go to the gym, and every time I go to the gym, I literally, when I walk through the door, I just, like, look up, and I’m like, I’m outside, I’m free, and I go to the gym, and I do my workout, and I try to connect to it there, but when I walk outside, if I ever can, I don’t wear, like, a jacket, because I want to feel that cold on me.

I want to feel that shock. I want to feel the idea that, like, I just willingly got in my car and drove here, and I can walk out the door, and I can, it’s just all these sensory things.

Felicia Shelton:
That’s a great point. And when you described how you would, you know, you got out, like, after 19 years, now at the flick of a switch, you’re out.

Like, you were released immediately. And then, that night, you’re sitting on the porch. That gave me chills. Because I can’t, I cannot imagine like, if that were me, you’re sitting on the porch and like you said, you hear the birds and all the, the, the noises of the forest and just life going on and you’re sitting there and you can, like you said, Just walk in and out of the door.

I love that the ice cream story because yeah, I’d be eating all of everything, you know That is incredible. That is that’s travel to everybody. That’s travel too. So Talk about now your travel before we So you began this, and even when we first met, you were traveling all over the place. And the reason you were traveling all over the place is because of your foundation.

And so your particular, I think your style of travel is more mission based. Can you tell us about your foundation? Sure. 

Jesse Crosson:
So the back story is, about two weeks after I got out, one of Courtney’s friends, somebody who’s become a friend, said, you know, you really need to tell your story. People are going to be interested.

So I had to download TikTok on the way actually to Humpback Mountain, where my dad used to take the kids every year. And I made a video. And I remember going home that night, being like, Katie, like, is this normal? Like, how many, how many views is normal in a video? And she said, Jesse, you’ve got 10, 000 views.

with no subscribers. Like, this is not normal. And that just blasted into this social media presence that I never imagined that allowed me to go to LA and meet with this producer and allowed me to go speak all over the country and allowed me to travel. And I think probably most importantly, allowed me to have a random conversation that I met one night with somebody who said, Hey, tell me your story.

Who are you? And I had a vague idea of who this person was, but I didn’t really. I, I told them who I was and where, what my story was and they asked for all my social media stuff. And we talked about impact and social impact and the importance. And I told them I was on my fifth round of interviews with the big national nonprofit where I thought maybe I could have an impact or where I could make a change.

And we left and, and Courtney said, Oh, you knew who that was, right? I said, Oh no, I didn’t really. So she explained it. The next morning I got an email and this person said, you know, I listened to all your stuff. I looked at who you are. I have researched the group you’re trying to apply for. I want you to not take this job.

I think that they are going to waste your time and they’re going to waste your talent and I believe this so firmly that I will give you the seed money to start your own 501c3 foundation. So you, basically the day you start your foundation, you send me the paperwork and I’m going to deposit a huge amount of money in your bank account and I’m going to allow you to do the work that you were meant to do.

Felicia Shelton:
Which is unbelievable. It is unbelievable, but it’s believable because that’s what you’re doing right now. Thank goodness for that person because the work that you’re doing. What’s the name of your foundation? Second Chancer foundation. That’s right I knew that everybody But why I mean I can of course I know why this is so important to you but What do you feel that people like me who have, you know, maybe some of us have, I have members of my family who served a lot of time and they’re out and they’re living great lives.

What do we on the outside need to know about second chancers? 

Jesse Crosson:
So one of the reasons that I took to social media is to share my story and hopefully be a success story both for people who are incarcerated or who have gotten out or for kind of advice and support of family members or someone who has somebody incarcerated.

But also as a story because the reality is people don’t assume. You met me in a social space. All the people around don’t know my history until I tell them or until somebody else tells them.

Felicia Shelton:
I didn’t know anything about you. I mean, this was like maybe two or three months or something and, and then someone says, Oh my God, he’s such a great guy, you know, and what a story he has.

I was like, what are you talking about? And then that person told me and what?

Jesse Crosson:
So one of the things I’ve thought is so important is to kind of be an ambassador and not necessarily lead with my story except on social media, but to walk into spaces, walk into rooms and have conversations with people that don’t know anything about me, have them immediately assume, oh, I always love it.

You know, I go to these places and they say, how did you get into this work? Were you on the financial side? Did you come from the tech world? I’m like, no, I came from the prison world. And the shock that comes up on their face, I think it’s really important because it lets people know this is the possibility after incarceration.

This is a path people can take, but my path was unique because I had support and I had resources and I had people who mentored me and I had people who opened doors and very few people do. So what we see is this kind of like stereotype in the media of, oh, somebody who gets out and we have this astronomical recidivism rate.

Well, of those people, the vast majority don’t have the resources, or don’t have the support, or don’t have the opportunities, or don’t have somebody opening doors for them, and that’s what we’re trying to do, both through a media campaign, as well as through the direct service work we’ve done here locally, as well as through building a national mentor network, because we want everybody to have the same opportunities I did.

Because, look, not everybody’s gonna take that, not everybody is gonna succeed in the way that, that they may want to, or that I may think is, you know, my dream, but if we can give everybody the opportunities, then it’s at least based on merit, and it’s based on the work done, rather than the lack of opportunity.

Felicia Shelton:
That’s right. I Love, love, love. I’ve learned so much more about you. You’re, I think you just, you just got back from L. A., Sacramento. And where are you off to next? 

Jesse Crosson:
So briefly, I’m going to Pennsylvania next weekend just to see a friend who’s having a really hard time. I don’t have anything until the end of February, I’m going back to Vegas with my mentor and her partner.

We just spent a week at CES, the Consumer Electronics Show, and it was all work, and it was great. I mean, we went around and we networked and we talked to people, but it was all work. And I’m kind of looking forward to going, and my mentor really wants to take me shopping, because she said she’s going to dress me a lot better than I’m dressed right now, and so I have to save money to go to the outlet malls.

Yes. But also, get some nature they’re, they’re from Canada, so it is 40 degrees below right now. And they’re like, you know, we really want to go back somewhere where it’s a little bit more temperate. So we’re going to spend a few days and just be social and connect. And that’s really the group that I found where I feel Kind of restored and rejuvenated because yeah, I’ve gone on a lot of travel.

I come back and I’m exhausted every time I travel with them I feel like I’ve traveled with a group of people who have my best interest at heart And I feel like the experience is good for me like it’s it’s enriching And then after that we go to South by Southwest for a week And then spoke I spoke last year and we’re leading a summit this year, which I’m excited about.

That’s incredible And then after that I go to Nashville. There’s a National Association of Reentry Professionals And so I’m going to give a presentation to them and I’m sure there’s going to be more travel. But the real thing, the dream is, I haven’t been able to leave the country since I got out.

That’s been one of the restrictions around probation and parole.

Felicia Shelton: That’s what, that was going to be my next question. 

Jesse Crosson:
So August 16th of this year, I’m off paper, I’m off probation, I’m done. And my mentor said, well, we need to celebrate, like you’re getting on a plane to Europe. And I don’t have the money to do that.

I don’t know how we’re going to do it. But she said, I don’t care. You figure it out. Like, we’re going to make this happen. We’re going to take you. Because they, they love to travel. And yeah, that’s, that’s my dream is I’ve got a lot of things I need to put in place. There’s a lot of things I need to make sure are kind of like ready to go, and then I would love to take a few weeks or a month and just go wander around Europe and see things that I’ve never seen and have experiences I’ve never had.

Because there’s something about that that’s the ultimate expression of freedom. Like we talk about being able to walk out a door, but to be able to go to a place that I never imagined going, that most of the people that I know have never had the opportunity to go, to do that feels like the ultimate expression of freedom.

Felicia Shelton:
Well, do you know that most, you know, Americans can usually spend 90 days visa free in Europe? So, you could make that, you know, three months.

Jesse Crosson:
Well, first of all, I’d have to figure out how to pay for that, which is a problem. But additionally, You’ll figure it out. We talk about stigma and barriers.

There are still significant. To Commonwealth countries like the UK and Canada and Australia, if you have a criminal record, you basically will not be allowed in. Did not know that. The EU is adopting a similar background check system. Now, depending on who you ask, some people are saying it is only looking for previous terrorism related offenses, and if you don’t have those, you’ll be allowed in.

Other people are saying, no, no, it very clearly is going to be like the UK system, that if you have a criminal record, they’re not going to allow you in. Now, this was supposed to go into place in 2022, and then 2023, and now they’re talking about putting it into place this year. So I basically need to get in before they put this system in place, because it very well may be my last opportunity.

Felicia Shelton:
I did not know that. I thought that, you know, you, you, you serve your time, you’re, you’re free to go. And, and I did not know that at all. 

Jesse Crosson:
If, if you look it up, there are a list of, it’s about 30 countries that will not let you in with a criminal record.

There are about 30 more that it’s, it’s a discretionary basis, and then the rest of the countries say they don’t care. And of those 30 that say they won’t let you in, a lot of those, it’s really just, if you can get a ticket, you can get in there, they’re not going to bother you. Okay. But if you do get caught, or you do get investigated, or you do get arrested, or something happens while you’re there, there will be very dire consequences.

Felicia Shelton:
Got it. Now, with that being said, where do you want to go in Europe or Asia? 

Jesse Crosson:
That’s interesting. So my mentor wants to take me to Paris and to Amsterdam because those are her favorites of all. That’s right. I would really like to go to Spain, I’d like to go to Portugal, I’d like to go to Italy. The, the mountains, the kind of like countryside, I, the old architecture too, I think that’s really big for me.

I’d like to go to Southeast Asia. I’d like to go to Costa Rica, which is where my dad moved before he died. So he died as an expatriate living. I love somebody said this the other day. I thought it was such a good idea. So, you know, if you’re colored, you’re an immigrant. If you’re white, you’re an expatriate.

And I was like, Oh, that’s a really interesting distinction. But so he went as an expatriate to Costa Rica and live there trying to start his revolution. Cause he lived in this little city, I mean my dad was an avid communist, he was a radical his whole life. Oh my god. And so his stance was, you know, I’m not going to be in America while we’re invading Iraq, I do not agree with this, so I’m leaving.

And he went down there and he said, you know what, I think we need to revolutionize the way people are paid, so he went and doubled the pay for every local person. The average pay there was a dollar an hour and he paid everybody two dollars an hour. And he would hire people and he would try to create competition, and it didn’t work.

But he, he did his best, he started a farm, he started a co op. Yeah. He was, he was an incredible, quixotic, also sometimes Sisyphusian man that I really admire and also recognize was very complicated. 

Felicia Shelton:
Jesse Crosson, You’re an incredible man, and you’re doing incredible work. And I thank you so very much for enlightening me, enlightening our audience.

And I just look forward to all the great things that you’re, you know, doing right now and will do in the very near future. Thank you so much. This is what we do here at In My Travels. You have to have conversations with people who are in your everyday space. I’m just lucky to have met you I and and to meet someone with that history This is not and you know what I I kept saying, you know, tell your story So this is not this is a part of your story.

You’re still create. We’re all still creating our story But I love the work that you’re doing. It’s such is educating me. I can’t hardly wait to learn more about Second Chancers Foundation and how else can How can we reach you? How can our audience learn more about you? Where can we find you?

Jesse Crosson:
You can look up Jesse Crosson or Second Chancer. It’s S E C O N D C H A N C E R on pretty much any of the social media platforms. Go to secondchancer.org. There’s a hyphen in between second and chancer. That’s a non profit website. You can see the work we’re doing. You can support the work we’re doing.

You can give us suggestions. You know, we’re always looking for ways that we can better impact the community and the larger community. And just grateful for all the support we received.

Felicia Shelton:
Thank you so much. And everybody, I will have that information as well on the liner notes. Thank you so much and happy travels. You as well. Thank you everyone. Thank you for joining us once again at In My Travels. Have a great day. Ciao.

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