Sometimes a voice can reach places its speaker cannot physically go.
On September 24, It Just Works authors Brandon D. Cox and Jermaine F. Ferguson have been invited to speak at No Exceptions for Slavery: Abolishing the 13th Amendment Loophole, an event being held at Mitchell Hamline School of Law in St. Paul.
For two men currently incarcerated at MCF-Stillwater, the opportunity carries a meaning much larger than simply participating in another event.
It is another opportunity to ensure that people living inside the correctional system have a voice in conversations taking place outside of it.
Brandon and Jermaine are honored and excited to continue serving as voices for change—not only by sharing their own experiences, but by carrying with them the experiences of the men who trusted them to help tell their stories through It Just Works: Real Stories & Behavioral Science From the Earned Living Unit.
We are especially grateful to David Boehnke for his continued support, belief in this work, and the opportunities he has helped create. We will also have the privilege of sharing this experience with Nic Hallanger.
More Than an Invitation to Speak
This opportunity represents exactly why It Just Works was created.
Many of the men whose voices appear in the book cannot attend community events, meet policymakers, speak with organizational leaders, or physically enter the spaces where decisions and conversations about incarceration, rehabilitation, and public safety take place.
But their stories can.
And when Brandon and Jermaine are given an opportunity to speak, they understand that responsibility extends beyond themselves.
Their names may be on the cover, but It Just Works represents something much larger: men inside MCF-Stillwater's Earned Living Unit (ELU) examining their lives, accepting accountability, developing leadership, building community, and demonstrating what meaningful rehabilitation can look like in practice.
Being invited into community conversations gives that work somewhere to go.
Showing What Rehabilitation Can Look Like
Too often, conversations about incarceration happen without meaningful exposure to what people are actually doing inside correctional institutions to change their lives.
It Just Works adds lived experience to that conversation.
Men learning accountability. Men developing leadership. Men challenging one another. Men building community. Men confronting the decisions that brought them to prison while asking what responsibility they have for the lives they choose to live today.
The ELU isn't presented as a perfect answer to corrections.
It's an environment worth paying attention to.
Because when different environments produce different behaviors, we should be willing to ask why.
From Incarceration to Contribution
Crookd Crown Publishing was built around the belief that lived experience can become something useful.
A mistake can become a lesson.
A lesson can become a story.
A story can become a book.
And a book can carry voices into rooms they otherwise may never reach.
Our purpose isn't simply to publish and sell books. We want this work to educate, create dialogue, amplify overlooked voices, support young people, encourage personal development, and contribute to stronger communities.
The work also gives back. Net proceeds from our books are being directed toward youth and positive initiatives connected to the work we believe in.
There is something powerful about men living behind prison walls creating work that reaches beyond them—and using that work to invest in young people outside of them.
The goal isn't simply to ask society for another chance. It's to use what we've learned to help create better chances for somebody else.
Community Creates Opportunity
Every invitation like this matters.
A speaking opportunity becomes a conversation.
A conversation creates a relationship.
A relationship can become a partnership.
And a partnership can open another door for voices that historically haven't been invited into the room.
That is why Brandon and Jermaine are excited to continue being voices for change while remaining committed to making sure this work never becomes solely about them.
It Just Works represents a community.
And as the book continues reaching community leaders, policymakers, corrections professionals, legislators, advocates, educators, and other decision-makers, we hope those conversations encourage people to look more closely at what rehabilitation can actually look like.
We are grateful to everyone helping those conversations happen.
Community transforms. Community builds.
And sometimes change begins when someone who normally wouldn't have a seat in the room is finally given a microphone.
It Just Works started behind the walls.
Its purpose—and its voices—were never meant to stay there.
— Crookd Crown Publishing
It Just Works: Real Stories & Behavioral Science From the Earned Living Unit
Brandon D. Cox & Jermaine F. Ferguson