In 2002, Jesse Crosson found cocaine. Combined with alcohol and the deep insecurity of adolescence, he spiraled fast—from a kid graduating high school to someone barely hanging on. Just after his 18th birthday, he committed a robbery and an unrelated nonfatal shooting.

"I was rightly arrested," Jesse reflects. "And I remember feeling this huge sense of relief that someone had stopped me, because I hadn't been able to stop myself."

The upper range of the sentencing guideline was 16 years. The judge sentenced him to 138 years with 106 suspended - an active sentence of 32 years, twice the guideline high point. Prison was supposed to break him. Instead, with the benefit of great love and support from family and unexpected mentors inside, Jesse got back up. He earned a Bachelor's degree. Became a journeyman electrician. Mentored other incarcerated men. Wrote articles for publication. He didn't just survive—he built a life worth living.

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.

Published by BenBella Books and distributed by Simon & Schuster, this deeply human memoir exposes the inequities of the criminal justice system while celebrating the hope that can be found in the grimmest environments.