Latest / Red Onion Randy - Life in a Supermax Prison / ROR 168: Second Chancer | Jesse Crosson Interview

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ROR 168: Second Chancer | Jesse Crosson Interview · Red Onion Randy - Life in a Supermax Prison

0:02
Speaker 1: Hello, this is a prebate call from and if the
0:06
Speaker 1: present Department of Correction read an in state prison to
0:10
Speaker 1: accept this call crass zero.
0:17
Speaker 2: This is Randall bob Aka read on you, Randy. I'm
0:22
Speaker 2: currently serving one thousand, two hundred and fourteen years for
0:25
Speaker 2: capital murder and arm robbery now and finally at a
0:32
Speaker 2: level three fucking Air Correctional Center sowa's throw from where
0:37
Speaker 2: I grew up. If you have any questions or comments
0:41
Speaker 2: and want to leave a message or whatever, I've got
0:43
Speaker 2: a voicemail line. That number is one eight eight eight
0:49
Speaker 2: five Zuit four one nine three suit. You can also
0:53
Speaker 2: visit my website which is new and improved and got
0:57
Speaker 2: different features and whatnot at deput debut red on your
1:01
Speaker 2: Randy dot com. I hope you do. Let's get started
1:06
Speaker 2: with the podcast today. I have an interesting guest. This
1:13
Speaker 2: is a guy who actually was doing time in the
1:16
Speaker 2: Virginia Department of Corrections as I was doing so. And
1:19
Speaker 2: even though we've never met or ran across one another,
1:23
Speaker 2: we know similar people. One of his best friends in
1:27
Speaker 2: prison used to be my old selly back in the day.
1:32
Speaker 2: Through mutual reaching out and so on and so forth,
1:36
Speaker 2: we was able to finally meet up and talk. His
1:40
Speaker 2: name is Jesse Crossing. He's on social media. He goes
1:45
Speaker 2: by the handle second Chancer and he's doing a lot
1:47
Speaker 2: of good out there. Now, the conversation kind of starts,
1:55
Speaker 2: you know, it kind of jumps straight into it for
1:59
Speaker 2: a couple of reasons. One, I did my research. We
2:03
Speaker 2: were setting this up, you know, I talked to some
2:05
Speaker 2: guys who knew this guy and so on a sob
2:07
Speaker 2: because I wanted to make sure he was legit. And
2:10
Speaker 2: from my understanding, he did the exact same on his end.
2:13
Speaker 2: He didn't want to just come on any random old
2:16
Speaker 2: guy's podcast and look stupid and can't blame them there.
2:22
Speaker 2: So after we did what we did, we jumped on
2:28
Speaker 2: the phone and we made it happen and kind of
2:31
Speaker 2: at an interesting time. And I know we jumped straight
2:33
Speaker 2: into the conversation, but that's because we just came off
2:36
Speaker 2: of a lot. For I've heard two different things. I
2:43
Speaker 2: don't know which one is true. The only thing I
2:45
Speaker 2: do know is that two guys got airlifted off of
2:50
Speaker 2: Buckingham because their heads got bashed in. Don't know what
2:54
Speaker 2: the weapon of choice was. I don't know the reason
2:56
Speaker 2: why some people are saying it's because they owe drug money.
3:01
Speaker 2: Other people are saying it's because they used the N
3:04
Speaker 2: word in front of the wrong black man. Either way,
3:08
Speaker 2: I ain't got much sympathy for you. Pay your debts,
3:11
Speaker 2: show respect, probably keep your skulls in tact. So with that,
3:18
Speaker 2: we had just come out for like a modified type
3:22
Speaker 2: of lock and then you had people coming in for
3:24
Speaker 2: the little Friday morning meeting in the pod I'm in,
3:26
Speaker 2: and we didn't know what was going on, so we
3:29
Speaker 2: just had to go for it and we did, and
3:31
Speaker 2: quite frankly, I think it turned out pretty damn good.
3:35
Speaker 2: I hope you enjoyed listening to it because I had fun.
3:39
Speaker 2: And uh maybe sometime in the future might be able
3:42
Speaker 2: to get him back on and do it again. Hope
3:45
Speaker 2: you enjoyed.
3:50
Speaker 3: Around me.
3:52
Speaker 2: I'm doing all right, hoss. How are you?
3:55
Speaker 3: I'm about to say him to Friday morning, but a
3:58
Speaker 3: good one.
3:59
Speaker 2: You know, she ain't spent the last two days on Locke.
4:03
Speaker 3: I mean to be fair, I was in the hospital,
4:05
Speaker 3: so I was. I was locked down in a different way,
4:06
Speaker 3: but not the last two days, just the last couple
4:08
Speaker 3: of weeks. But yeah, I can't imagine you're having a
4:10
Speaker 3: very good.
4:11
Speaker 2: Time up there at the end of the day. Brouh,
4:14
Speaker 2: I'm loving it up here. You know, it's so much
4:17
Speaker 2: better than the Western region and where I come from. Man,
4:20
Speaker 2: so I've got I've got the right respective for it.
4:23
Speaker 2: Where are you at now, Buckingham, your old stomping girnels?
4:28
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, well, I mean it's it's it's not even
4:31
Speaker 3: nearly as good as it was, but yeah, that's a
4:32
Speaker 3: million times better than the Onion Jesus.
4:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's uh, it's it's not as good as I
4:37
Speaker 2: heard it used to be, but uh, they're getting ready
4:40
Speaker 2: to turn it into an a CNC prison.
4:42
Speaker 3: So yeah, you know, I've got here.
4:45
Speaker 2: I was just in nineteen years Stars free and everything.
4:48
Speaker 3: Sorry, good ship. Yeah, I was just in Dylan a
4:51
Speaker 3: couple of weeks ago, and they were telling me about
4:52
Speaker 3: the things they were doing in those two locations, right
4:56
Speaker 3: all right, So.
4:58
Speaker 2: If you don't mind, man, I mean U I've heard
5:00
Speaker 2: a little bit about you through uh, through my editor Michael,
5:04
Speaker 2: and also I asked the guy in here, uh if
5:07
Speaker 2: he had known who you were and everything, and uh
5:10
Speaker 2: he said he didn't know, but he had Two of
5:12
Speaker 2: his really really good friends are really cool with you. Uh,
5:17
Speaker 2: I can't remember what the one guy's name, but the
5:18
Speaker 2: other guy st uh beautiful.
5:28
Speaker 3: It was a small world, right.
5:31
Speaker 2: It always is. Bro. That's what a lot of people
5:33
Speaker 2: don't realize about prison. You know what I'm saying. It's, uh,
5:37
Speaker 2: it's an extremely tiny world.
5:40
Speaker 3: It was when I went into dealing the other week,
5:42
Speaker 3: it was, uh, all the people that I knew, all
5:44
Speaker 3: the people had been locked up with, all the staff
5:45
Speaker 3: and people had worked for jobs I've had. It was just,
5:48
Speaker 3: you know, a different world right there. And then in
5:50
Speaker 3: you know, an hour or two in the in the gym.
5:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's actually talk about that. Uh. You know I
5:56
Speaker 2: heard that you was, uh got locked up at eighteen
5:59
Speaker 2: yourself pretty much the same as me. You know, you
6:02
Speaker 2: did your time, all got a part and everything, which
6:07
Speaker 2: is something I'm extremely unarrested in because my wife just
6:09
Speaker 2: paid thirty five hundred to James Dillingham out of Hampton,
6:14
Speaker 2: Virginia to help me fall for one.
6:15
Speaker 3: Okay, so yeah, so at eighteen I committed a robbery
6:19
Speaker 3: in the shooting if they were just strung out on
6:20
Speaker 3: drugs and out of my mind, and now I know
6:22
Speaker 3: what I was doing, I'm really lucky that I didn't
6:24
Speaker 3: kill anybody in the shooting. I really did lucky that
6:26
Speaker 3: I din't seriously hurt anybody in the robbery. My co
6:28
Speaker 3: defendants all got two and a half, four and eight
6:31
Speaker 3: years and I got thirty two years. You know, just
6:34
Speaker 3: kind of tried to figure out what I was going
6:36
Speaker 3: to do, and it kind of hit the ground running.
6:37
Speaker 3: It had people who believed in me, encouraged me while
6:39
Speaker 3: I was feeling charge of myself and forced me or
6:42
Speaker 3: drove me to get an education and help other people
6:44
Speaker 3: and kind of grow in every way that I could.
6:46
Speaker 3: The point that after in nineteen years, Governor Ralph Northam
6:49
Speaker 3: granted me a conditional partner to let me go, and
6:51
Speaker 3: that was August sixteenth to twenty twenty one, so coming
6:54
Speaker 3: up on four years ago.
6:56
Speaker 2: But as I mean, first of all, dude, you know,
6:59
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm sure you already know this, but you know,
7:02
Speaker 2: just for the listeners like here's stuff like that, man,
7:04
Speaker 2: it gives us the inspiration in here. You know, I
7:11
Speaker 2: really wish I would have took a freaking shot and
7:13
Speaker 2: followed my part at wonder Ralph Norton. But whatever reason
7:17
Speaker 2: I didn't do it.
7:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean what I mean young people. I actually
7:21
Speaker 3: met somebody at Dylan who had gotten a part and
7:23
Speaker 3: under Yunkin it's possible, but it's far fetched. He seems
7:27
Speaker 3: to be more on the political side than it is
7:28
Speaker 3: on the kind of humanitarian side. But as far as
7:31
Speaker 3: what it was like, yeah, getting up in the morning
7:33
Speaker 3: and thinking I have ten years left in my sentence,
7:35
Speaker 3: and that afternoon finding it out I'm going home in
7:37
Speaker 3: an hour and a half. They really aren't words for that.
7:40
Speaker 3: It's about as shocking and overwhelming and amazing as I
7:42
Speaker 3: possibly could have imagined. I think a lot of people
7:44
Speaker 3: imagine they like tell you, and they give you warning
7:46
Speaker 3: and you plan out. It was like, well, like get
7:48
Speaker 3: out and kick me out in the middle of COVID, you know.
7:50
Speaker 3: They basically said, we hope your mom can get here
7:52
Speaker 3: inside because she doesn't, we're not gonna be able to
7:54
Speaker 3: release you. And I was like, well, I hope you
7:56
Speaker 3: can get here. And then getting out to the world.
7:58
Speaker 3: It's overwhelming in a way that that very few people
8:01
Speaker 3: can can imagine unless you've gone from that. And I've
8:03
Speaker 3: talked to a lot of veterans' separated from service. I
8:05
Speaker 3: talked to a lot of people about the abuse of relationships.
8:07
Speaker 3: I've talked to a lot of people who have left
8:08
Speaker 3: like really unhealthy or abusive homes. It's the same kind
8:10
Speaker 3: of thing, like we become dependent upon the system because
8:13
Speaker 3: the system requires us to dependent on it, and then
8:15
Speaker 3: we get out in the world and we're just not
8:16
Speaker 3: prepared and it's a huge adjustment.
8:21
Speaker 2: Yef. That's actually something I'm intimately interested in because I
8:28
Speaker 2: don't know if you you know, researched me when you know,
8:32
Speaker 2: when Michael reached out to you for this opportunity and
8:35
Speaker 2: everything for us. You know who I am my past.
8:41
Speaker 2: I used to be an extremely extremely violent individual. You know,
8:45
Speaker 2: I've cut two people's stoke since I've been in prison.
8:47
Speaker 2: I'll fault the police left and right. You know, I've
8:51
Speaker 2: ran up and do sales and you know, I've did
8:54
Speaker 2: all that stuff. And as you know, in prison, there's
8:57
Speaker 2: a code of conduct. There's there's things you can kind
9:00
Speaker 2: of let slide, and there's some things that you just
9:03
Speaker 2: you cannot let slide whatsoever, Like if somebody calls you
9:06
Speaker 2: a bitch in front of Paud, Like you know, there
9:08
Speaker 2: are things in here that you know you have to
9:11
Speaker 2: do sometimes, and that's I've been in prison since eleven.
9:15
Speaker 2: I did seven years in the juvenile system, got out
9:18
Speaker 2: very briefly, got locked back up, you know, under capital
9:21
Speaker 2: murder and on barbery and whatnot. So like, how do
9:24
Speaker 2: you transition from that way we're forced to live here
9:29
Speaker 2: in prison to being on the streets, because there's it's
9:33
Speaker 2: two entirely different ways of communicating and speaking to another
9:37
Speaker 2: human being depending on what side of the censure. How
9:40
Speaker 2: do you deal with that?
9:42
Speaker 3: I'll say I made a lot of changes in prison
9:44
Speaker 3: as far as the people that I was around and
9:46
Speaker 3: the things I was doing, so that wasn't as much
9:47
Speaker 3: of an issue. Like I mean, theoretically it could be
9:49
Speaker 3: an issue. But when I wasn't when I wasn't gambling,
9:52
Speaker 3: when I wasn't getting high, when I wasn't in the game,
9:53
Speaker 3: when I wasn't doing anything, I didn't have to worry
9:55
Speaker 3: about anybody calling you a bitch or getting the conflict.
9:58
Speaker 3: And one gets try to stab me with a pencil
10:00
Speaker 3: maybe a year or so before I got out, just
10:01
Speaker 3: because he was having a mental health issue and he
10:03
Speaker 3: was frustrated. But other than that, I mean, that was
10:05
Speaker 3: a situation where I just defended myself. It wasn't the
10:07
Speaker 3: same thing, but when I focused on I was one
10:10
Speaker 3: of the mentors in the same program. I focused on, Hey,
10:13
Speaker 3: how do we help people? Like how do I spend
10:14
Speaker 3: all day reading and educating myself and helping other people
10:16
Speaker 3: and staying out of the politics. Now, when I got
10:18
Speaker 3: sent out of the dormitory for the last ten months
10:20
Speaker 3: and all of a sudden, we're fighting over the phones
10:21
Speaker 3: and we're doing other stuff, that was different, and that
10:23
Speaker 3: was kind of a return to the kind of prison mindset,
10:26
Speaker 3: and I didn't like that at all. But I feel
10:28
Speaker 3: like I'd made enough changes that by the time I
10:29
Speaker 3: hit the street, it was still uncomfortable, Like every time
10:32
Speaker 3: somebody bumped into me, or every time I had one
10:34
Speaker 3: of those situations like that, the flare uff was there,
10:36
Speaker 3: like the emotion of the response was there, but I
10:38
Speaker 3: would just force myself to breathe, just force myself not
10:40
Speaker 3: to react. And it took less time than I expected
10:43
Speaker 3: to kind of adjust to it being okay or being
10:45
Speaker 3: more comfortable, but still like every now and then, if
10:48
Speaker 3: I'm too tired, i'm too stressed at or something's going on,
10:50
Speaker 3: that's still my first reaction because I had twenty years
10:52
Speaker 3: of learning it. But I think it kind of intentionally
10:55
Speaker 3: going into it and then getting into spaces where I'm
10:57
Speaker 3: I'm safe. I don't go out the crazy bars, I
10:59
Speaker 3: don't go out the places where people are fighting. Like
11:01
Speaker 3: I stay away from all that. I'll be in home,
11:03
Speaker 3: usually in bed by nine or nine thirty because I
11:05
Speaker 3: don't want any of that energy around me, because I
11:06
Speaker 3: know what it's done to me in the past. Yeah, well, that's.
11:10
Speaker 2: Good to hear, because you know, that's that's something that
11:12
Speaker 2: I've been doing myself. And you know, for a long time,
11:16
Speaker 2: I've been asking myself when somebody does something to me
11:19
Speaker 2: to trigger me, make me mad, whatever, you know. And
11:22
Speaker 2: I asked myself, and it's a crazy question to ask yourself,
11:25
Speaker 2: but I do. I ask myself, this, are you going
11:28
Speaker 2: to murder this person over this? And you know, thankfully,
11:32
Speaker 2: for the last however long, my answer has always been
11:35
Speaker 2: known because it's not worth it. It's not throwing away
11:38
Speaker 2: everything I've worked so hard for and everything that I
11:41
Speaker 2: want out of life, you know, and then you're living
11:46
Speaker 2: proof that it does work, you know. So that's that's
11:50
Speaker 2: a good thing. You know.
11:52
Speaker 3: People people talk about the struggles around housing, or the
11:55
Speaker 3: struggles around employment or like you said, the struggles around
11:57
Speaker 3: like the way we interact with people, are communicate with people.
12:00
Speaker 3: What we don't think about is the number of choices
12:01
Speaker 3: we have to make on a daily basis out here
12:03
Speaker 3: versus in that Like if you get up in the morning,
12:05
Speaker 3: you know you're going to trowl when they call trow
12:07
Speaker 3: you know you're gonna like go to wreck when they
12:08
Speaker 3: call record, You're gonna go to work when they call work.
12:10
Speaker 3: And it's simple. But out here you got to choose
12:12
Speaker 3: what you do at every moment. You gotta make thousands
12:15
Speaker 3: or tens of thousands of choices every day, and I
12:17
Speaker 3: had lost the comfort of doing that. I remember sitting
12:20
Speaker 3: in the aisle looking at a bunch of body washing
12:22
Speaker 3: cbs I don't know, like two days, three days after
12:24
Speaker 3: I got out, and not knowing how to make the
12:25
Speaker 3: decisions because for all those years I just ordered the
12:27
Speaker 3: fame Soapon commisary. There was no like, I'm choosing between
12:30
Speaker 3: ten things, this is the one that doesn't break me out.
12:32
Speaker 3: And having to make those decisions and having to like
12:34
Speaker 3: figure out where I actually wanted to go and what
12:36
Speaker 3: I wanted to do is one of the hardest parts
12:38
Speaker 3: for me. That's why a lot of times, outside people
12:40
Speaker 3: the best thing they can do is, like folks on
12:41
Speaker 3: making decisions, like force yourself to make decisions about which
12:44
Speaker 3: shirts you're gonna wear, what you're gonna do, or you
12:46
Speaker 3: know which way you're gonna go, or what time you're
12:47
Speaker 3: gonna get up, but not just by setting alarm, by
12:49
Speaker 3: like changing it every day and when. I don't know
12:51
Speaker 3: if that actually works, but I know that I was
12:53
Speaker 3: so overwhelmed by decisions when I got out that almost
12:55
Speaker 3: pushed me over the deed to two.
12:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, well see, and that's often. And honestly, dude, I've
13:01
Speaker 2: been preparing myself to eventually get out of prison somehow.
13:07
Speaker 2: I don't know when, but it's gonna happens. That's I
13:11
Speaker 2: have that mindset. I have that belief. And that's something
13:14
Speaker 2: that I've never heard about. That's something in all of
13:17
Speaker 2: my preparation and all of my thinking and daydreaming and everything,
13:22
Speaker 2: is the fact that, yeah, I'm gonna have to come
13:25
Speaker 2: home and make thousands of decisions every single day. And
13:30
Speaker 2: like nobody talks about that, even in the pre release
13:33
Speaker 2: programs that they have here in prison. You know, I've
13:36
Speaker 2: never heard one person ever outside of yourself just now
13:40
Speaker 2: talk about what it's like to make decisions like and
13:45
Speaker 2: that's why you know, I'm writing my own program. Me
13:48
Speaker 2: and my editor are working doing a cause you ain't
13:50
Speaker 2: beyond saving. And I think we're definitely going to have
13:53
Speaker 2: to add a section on what you just said, because
13:57
Speaker 2: that's extremely important.
14:01
Speaker 3: This is.
14:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, well that's you know, I mean, this is this
14:05
Speaker 2: is why Virginia needs to stop hiring you know, people
14:09
Speaker 2: that graduates in college and got some criminal justice degree
14:13
Speaker 2: to come up and create these programs. They don't know,
14:16
Speaker 2: they've never even been in a prison, but yet they're
14:19
Speaker 2: writing a program for a prisoner. Like what kind of
14:22
Speaker 2: sense does that make? You know? They should be hiring
14:26
Speaker 2: you as a contractor giving you the same money they're
14:29
Speaker 2: given them, And have you actually don a program because
14:34
Speaker 2: you know what it's like in here, you know what
14:36
Speaker 2: it's like to get out, you know what it's like
14:38
Speaker 2: to do all these things. You know that if they
14:41
Speaker 2: don't know that, they can't even possibly think is important.
14:45
Speaker 2: How is making a decision for body wash that important
14:48
Speaker 2: to them? But like you said, for us, it can
14:52
Speaker 2: literally freeze you up.
14:54
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think you know, I'm involved in a project
14:56
Speaker 3: down in North Carolina, and we've got a data scientists
14:59
Speaker 3: who's who going through like hundreds of basically studies or
15:03
Speaker 3: questions around people who've actually been locked up and what
15:06
Speaker 3: did they struggled it and what it is they need.
15:08
Speaker 3: This guy's an academic, he's never been locked up, but
15:10
Speaker 3: he recognized it. Yeah, there's no way I'm going to
15:11
Speaker 3: know any of this. There's no way I'm gonna understand.
15:13
Speaker 3: So I need to make sure I'm diving into everybody's
15:15
Speaker 3: experience so that I can come up with what is
15:17
Speaker 3: actually given the most effective for people getting out based
15:19
Speaker 3: on the experiences of people getting out.
15:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, and that's right, you know we uh,
15:28
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure you've heard of the rash of CEO
15:31
Speaker 2: stabbings and assaults in the last month or so. And
15:37
Speaker 2: then you know, of course you've got Aubrey McKay, the
15:39
Speaker 2: young man that was just murdered by the guards at
15:42
Speaker 2: Walling's Ridge last week. You know, all of these things.
15:45
Speaker 2: And I tried talking to some of the people up
15:49
Speaker 2: here like look, you know, yeah, I can't fix this.
15:51
Speaker 2: Nobody can fix violence in prison. It's just it's not
15:56
Speaker 2: going to happen. We literally live in an emotional pressure
15:59
Speaker 2: cook here in here, everything is just exaggerated to the
16:02
Speaker 2: tenth degree for us because of the environment we find
16:06
Speaker 2: ourselves in, because of the lack of stimulus, the lack
16:08
Speaker 2: of care and so on and so forth. You know,
16:12
Speaker 2: But you can still come talk to me, come sit
16:15
Speaker 2: down with me, or guys like me who not only
16:21
Speaker 2: we've done the valish things and then we kind of
16:24
Speaker 2: grew up, and then we rehabilitated themselves and then we've
16:27
Speaker 2: proven it for a long period of time. I've been
16:29
Speaker 2: Charles Street for nineteen years, and I didn't do it
16:32
Speaker 2: at some soft ass camp like here in Buckingham or
16:36
Speaker 2: you know, Lawrenceville or whatever the case may be. I
16:39
Speaker 2: did it in red Onion, I did it in Wallace Ridge.
16:42
Speaker 2: I did it, you know, at Keen Mountain and now
16:45
Speaker 2: eventually here at Buckingham. Like it's an entirely different world
16:49
Speaker 2: from being in those mountains to being down here in
16:51
Speaker 2: the Eastern region. You know. But we had insights that
16:57
Speaker 2: you as a correctional staff or you Richmond, who've never
17:01
Speaker 2: even been to a prison, but yet you're still working
17:04
Speaker 2: in the Department of Correction. It's like, come speat to
17:07
Speaker 2: us about these things because we know what it takes,
17:11
Speaker 2: you know, but they're so afraid of you know, me
17:15
Speaker 2: or you or somebody else saying well, just give us this,
17:18
Speaker 2: give us that, give us, give us, give us, give us,
17:20
Speaker 2: give us. And the sad part is we wouldn't ask
17:25
Speaker 2: them to give us anything except better educational materials and
17:29
Speaker 2: better opportunities to trade, more opportunities to actually do something
17:36
Speaker 2: you know, we want and what they don't realize we
17:39
Speaker 2: actually want to earn our release from prison. We don't
17:41
Speaker 2: just want it handed to us. Because if we hand
17:44
Speaker 2: it to us and we don't have to struggle for it,
17:46
Speaker 2: we don't have to fight for we don't have to,
17:49
Speaker 2: you know, to give our all to get it. We
17:52
Speaker 2: we know we're going to piss it away. And that's
17:58
Speaker 2: you know, that's what I like. What this you know,
18:00
Speaker 2: this data scientist shits talking about, Like at least he's
18:03
Speaker 2: smart enough.
18:04
Speaker 3: To recognize this fact. Yeah, we definitely need professionals who
18:07
Speaker 3: are willing to use lived experience, and there's more of
18:10
Speaker 3: a talk around that. USC actually asked me about being
18:12
Speaker 3: a re entry coordinator where I would go from prison
18:15
Speaker 3: to prison talking about my experience, but it probably is
18:17
Speaker 3: it's like nineteen hours a week or twenty eight hours
18:20
Speaker 3: a week or somewhere, and then like nineteen bucks an hours.
18:23
Speaker 3: It's not enough to live on. If I was indefenditely wealthy,
18:26
Speaker 3: I would do it because then I could just go
18:27
Speaker 3: from place to place and know I could make an impact.
18:28
Speaker 3: But nobody's gonna be able to pay a rent or
18:31
Speaker 3: a car game and or anything on that bill.
18:34
Speaker 2: Right. Yeah, And that's another thing. You know, most of
18:40
Speaker 2: the guys that get out of person, you know, they
18:44
Speaker 2: don't have opportunities. You know, how many times have you
18:48
Speaker 2: heard a guy sign up for the plumbing program or
18:51
Speaker 2: the masonry or you know, the electrical trade classes and
18:56
Speaker 2: they're literally waiting eight, nine, ten years to get in
18:59
Speaker 2: there because most times the damn teacher doesn't even show
19:03
Speaker 2: up to work. Yet they still get paid and we
19:06
Speaker 2: get screwed. And then they get released from prison and
19:08
Speaker 2: go home and they got to go flip burgers for
19:11
Speaker 2: whatever minimum wage is now.
19:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, and that's we do a lot of
19:15
Speaker 3: work here in Central Virginia around workforce and training and
19:18
Speaker 3: job placement and entrepreneurship, because yeah, that is often the case,
19:22
Speaker 3: especially in the jail or the local areas where they
19:24
Speaker 3: just don't even have those programs. I mean, I was
19:26
Speaker 3: in the junior center yesterday and we were working to
19:28
Speaker 3: try to get some vocational stuff in there as well
19:30
Speaker 3: as get them set up the job training and job
19:32
Speaker 3: placement before they get out. Because yeah, saying Okay, I
19:34
Speaker 3: want you to get out and do this, but that's great,
19:36
Speaker 3: but if you got a flip burgers and then go
19:37
Speaker 3: to school at night, one, it didn't give you a
19:39
Speaker 3: lot of time. And two, a lot of times guys
19:41
Speaker 3: just want to give up and go back to what
19:42
Speaker 3: they know because they can make a lot more money
19:43
Speaker 3: doing it right.
19:44
Speaker 2: And I mean, and as we both know, men, there's
19:46
Speaker 2: a lot of money in on the darker side.
19:48
Speaker 3: Of the n Yeah.
19:50
Speaker 2: And to say, Tom, you know, crime is an addiction.
19:53
Speaker 2: You know, it's not just drugs and alcohol or sex
19:56
Speaker 2: or what have you. Like, crime is one of the
19:59
Speaker 2: most dangerous sedictions out there. Because there's dude, like, I
20:02
Speaker 2: haven't found a rush quite like it.
20:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, I will say, you know, I've got a friend
20:07
Speaker 3: who she always tries to like coach me down, and
20:10
Speaker 3: they're like different ways or different things I'm doing. And
20:12
Speaker 3: she said, you know, we can get attracted to carrying
20:14
Speaker 3: a gun and having sex and doing cocaine. It's a
20:17
Speaker 3: lot harder to get used to just like having a
20:19
Speaker 3: nice evening on the couch or like having a nice
20:21
Speaker 3: walk in the woods, because it is it's a totally
20:23
Speaker 3: different feel. It's a totally different level of like serotonin
20:26
Speaker 3: doesn't mean, and adjusting to that is one of the
20:27
Speaker 3: most important things you can do.
20:29
Speaker 2: We I'm in complete agreement with both of you on that,
20:33
Speaker 2: and that's why you know, even in here, I like
20:38
Speaker 2: getting up in the morning around five give or takes
20:40
Speaker 2: so I can prayer. You know, I'm not always perfectly
20:43
Speaker 2: alert or where and they're not always the greatest prayer sometimes,
20:46
Speaker 2: especially you know, if I don't get a good, nice
20:49
Speaker 2: sleep or.
20:49
Speaker 3: Whatever, I'm coming you have one minute remaining. But I'm
20:54
Speaker 3: trying to.
20:54
Speaker 2: Find those little moments of quiet and solitude and get
20:58
Speaker 2: used to it in here because as you're you know,
21:00
Speaker 2: as you're aware, there's nothing but noise in prison. Like
21:04
Speaker 2: even a female CEO makes rounds at three am and
21:08
Speaker 2: the Department of Correction says she has to come in
21:10
Speaker 2: and yell out female on the floor in the middle
21:13
Speaker 2: of the damn night, where guys are trying to sleep,
21:15
Speaker 2: you know, so there's always constant noise into stupid things
21:19
Speaker 2: going on. So finding that moment of solitude is yeah,
21:23
Speaker 2: it's it's very important. Look, bro, I appreciate you reaching
21:27
Speaker 2: out to us man and uh or calling us and
21:29
Speaker 2: everything after we reached out to you and taking this
21:31
Speaker 2: time to talk to me and whatnot. Man, I do
21:34
Speaker 2: appreciate it.
21:35
Speaker 3: Yes, keeping it up. I'm glad you're a buckingham ling
21:38
Speaker 3: the onion.
21:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, you you and me both. Man, keep doing what
21:42
Speaker 2: you're doing out there, man, because people like you give
21:44
Speaker 2: us hope in here.
21:45
Speaker 3: Thank you for using GTL.
21:49
Speaker 2: All right, that's uh, that's all the time we have
21:51
Speaker 2: for now. I appreciate you listening to me more than
21:56
Speaker 2: you'll uh you'll probably ever know. I just want to
21:59
Speaker 2: let you know, you know, don't forget to check out
22:02
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23:06
Speaker 3: Thank you for using the GTL