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A teen tries to outrun pain, finds cocaine, and goes from a kid coming of age, to a daily user in a matter of weeks. Then come the crimes, the fear, the SWAT arrest, and a sentence so extreme it reshapes his entire identity: 32 years of prison time at 18 years old. In this episode of Amplified Voices, Jason and guest host, Kim are joined by Jesse Crosson, lived-experience advocate, activist and author of The Best Part of Prison, to talk through what led to that three-month freefall and what it actually takes to rebuild a life after real harm.

We get specific about the emotional engine underneath the story: childhood chaos, feeling unseen, taking on adult responsibility too early, and the way anger can sit quietly for years before it erupts. Jesse shares, how acceptance differs from resignation, and why accountability becomes a starting line instead of a life sentence. We also talk about practical tools he uses then and now, including meditation, therapy, and daily check-ins that help him stop reacting and choose his next move.

After 19 years, a conditional pardon brings him home into a world transformed by COVID, and he’s honest about survivor’s guilt and the role of luck and privilege in reentry.

From there, we follow his work with the Second Chancer Foundation and Central Virginia Community Justice, including restorative justice and court diversion, plus the hard truth that community healing often depends on storytelling, trust, and real work, not punishment alone.

Learn more about Jesse at https://jessecrosson.com

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On this episode of Amplified Voices, Amber and Jason speak with Bessie Elmore who shares how a single phone call shattered the illusion of normal and sent her family into a world of warrants, headlines, courtrooms, and prisons. Everything seemed to move too fast for the truth to catch up. What followed wasn’t a miracle; it was grit. Across decades, Bessie turned confusion into literacy, fear into strategy, and isolation into community power. We walk through the shock of an FBI knock, the weight of a three-day trial that ended with her son receiving a natural life sentence, and the moment at a prison window when a mother and son made a promise to keep each other alive.

From there, the story widens. Bessie and her daughter learned the rules no one explains, how habeas deadlines close doors, how narratives get weaponized, and how transfers can endanger or protect someone inside. They built alliances with advocates and officials, leaned on faith, and used books as lifelines. Along the way, she realized her family was not alone.

Straight Talk Support Group was born, first as a handful of chairs in a rented room, later as a statewide network, and now as a global Zoom community where families share tools, rides, contacts, and courage. The approach is practical and fierce: take notes, make calls, escalate respectfully, and never accept “no” as the end of the story.

If this moved you, subscribe, share the episode with someone who needs it, and leave a review to help more families find these tools.

About Bessie Elmore:

Ms. Elmore is the executive Director of Straight Talk Support Group and has over 25 years of experience in the field of self-help and designing programs for reentry, domestic violence victims, and grandparents raising their grandchildren. As Founder and CEO of Turning Corners Alliance, Ms. Elmore also taught classes at Durham Technical Community College on job readiness, computer skills and resume writing skills. She was also facilitator at the Troy House before it closed its doors in 2017.

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In episode of Amplified Voices, Amber and Jason chat with Joshua Hoe about incarceration, reentry and renewal. During the course of the conversation we get a front-row seat to accountability, reentry built on constraints: registry rules that make simple walks risky, five-hour weekday windows on parole, and landlords who rarely open doors. Josh turns that maze into a practice of workarounds—writing web content with a word processor offline, uploading from monitored terminals, and negotiating permissions with persistence. The throughline is strategy: learn the unwritten rules, solve for the next step, and document every decision. That mindset carries him from a volunteer seat to national reform tables, where sharp questions at conferences and targeted online campaigns open unexpected doors.

Then comes the inflection point: consulting on criminal justice reform during the First Step Act push, pressing forward to help others, realizing injustice even when it isn't his own, watching a U.S. senator read language he helped craft on the Senate floor. It’s a reminder that power can start from a shared kitchen in a halfway house if paired with understanding, connection, discipline and an eye for moments that matter. His closing advice is simple and invitational: walk into every room like you belong there, and keep hustling to create your next opportunity.

Joshua B. Hoe is the Senior Policy Manager at Dream.Org
Josh has a background in public speaking, debate, and public policy research. He holds a Bachelor's degree in Political Science and a Master’s Degree in International Relations, is a former national college debate champion (1990), and was a long-time college debate coach.

Since returning from incarceration in 2013, Josh has been a Policy Analyst, a lobbyist, a social media and messaging consultant, an organizer, a debate consultant, and the host and creator of the Decarceration Nation Podcast. His work is guided by bringing people back from incarceration better.

Josh loves alternative music and used to DJ as well as play in several punk and post-punk bands in the 1980s

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