The Fifth Quarter

Did RDAP change how we think, or just teach us how to behave?

Hasan and Brad were in the same RDAP class at FPC Montgomery, and Ross came through a class or two behind them. All three completed the residential program and the halfway-house treatment after it. In this episode they show you what the RDAP words actually meant: Jumpstart, pull-ups, lanyard colors, rollback and Team. They play a new game, Accept, Deny, or Team, run a pull-up for the camera, and tell the real stories behind Hasan's and Ross's time in yellow, including Hasan's first Team.

In 5Q By The Numbers, the guys guess what share of eligible RDAP completers actually got the maximum sentence reduction. Brad guessed 85%. Ross guessed 90%. The real number was far lower.

Then it's the communication tools they still use today ("beneficial," catching demand thinking, positive self-talk), what halfway-house follow-up treatment looked like for them, and at what age each of them would have taken RDAP if they could do it over.

Accept, deny, or team? Play along and vote in the comments.

This episode reflects our personal experiences and opinions. It is not legal advice. Contains strong language. RDAP is described as we remember it at one facility; it is not a statement of BOP policy at every site.

5Q BY THE NUMBERS

- 19% (2,846 of 15,302) of eligible RDAP completers in fiscal years 2009-2011 received the maximum sentence reduction; the average reduction was 8.0 months. Source: U.S. Government Accountability Office, GAO-12-320 (February 2012).

https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-12-320

- The current BOP maximum RDAP reduction depends on sentence length and is not guaranteed: 30 months or less, up to 6 months; 31-36 months, up to 9; 37 months or more, up to 12. Source: Federal Bureau of Prisons, Program Statement 5331.02, Change Notice 3 (May 7, 2026); 18 U.S.C. 3621(e).

https://www.bop.gov/policy/progstat/5331_002_CN-3.pdf

- First Step Act time credits are separate from the RDAP sentence reduction. Sources: 18 U.S.C. 3632(d)(4) (FSA time credits); 18 U.S.C. 3621(e) (RDAP reduction).

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/3632

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/3621

The Fifth Quarter is an unfiltered conversation between formerly incarcerated men about what prison takes, what it teaches, and what comes after. The game isn't over. There's always another quarter.

Hosts: Hasan Brown, Brad McCorkle, Ross

CHAPTERS

0:00 Cold open: did RDAP change how we think?

0:51 Welcome: same RDAP class at FPC Montgomery

2:44 The game: Accept, Deny or Team

8:30 The one-year "carrot"

9:55 Why RDAP, and getting in

12:13 First Jumpstart

13:47 How Jumpstart worked

17:39 Pull-ups, demonstrated

27:27 Denying a pull-up

32:24 Was Jumpstart a manipulation?

33:52 Raids, silence and time as leverage

39:54 What "Team" is

43:32 Hasan's first Team

51:30 What's at stake: the rollback

54:50 Did RDAP change people?

56:23 Ross in yellow

1:02:08 Communication tools that stuck

1:08:30 5Q By The Numbers: who got the max reduction?

1:11:26 Halfway-house treatment

1:14:58 More useful on the outside?

1:16:38 At what age would you take RDAP?

1:24:19 Sign-off: always another quarter

Your sentence has a bill. The question is, who paid for it?

Hasan, Brad and Ross get honest about what prison cost the people who never got sentenced: the kids, the spouses, the moms who flew in every month, and the friends who did or didn't show up. They talk about when it finally hit home that their families had become victims of their choices, living two lives until the double life collapsed, whether your family owes you loyalty while you're inside, and how therapy and RDAP changed the way they listen.

In 5Q By The Numbers, the guys guess how much money people inside actually have, what prison jobs pay, and which family member is most likely to support someone who's incarcerated. The answers surprised all three of them.

Then it's Stay, Leave, or It Depends, the small things that mattered most inside (yes, Friday ice cream), and some hard-earned advice for anyone on supervised release.

Who showed up for you, or who did you show up for? Tell us in the comments.

This episode reflects our personal experiences and opinions. It is not legal advice. Contains strong language.

5Q BY THE NUMBERS

- About 77% of federal commissary accounts held $249.99 or less on Dec. 4, 2024. Source: Federal Bureau of Prisons, Federal Register 89 FR 102022 (Dec. 17, 2024).

https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2024-12-17/html/2024-29692.htm

- Federal prison institution work assignments pay 12 to 40 cents an hour. Source: Federal Bureau of Prisons, Work Programs.

https://www.bop.gov/inmates/custody_and_care/work_programs.jsp

- 86% of adult children with an incarcerated parent spend money to support them, averaging $5,470 a year; 60% of those adult children are 18 to 29. Source: FWD.us, We Can't Afford It: Mass Incarceration and the Family Tax (June 2025).

https://www.wecantaffordit.us/

The Fifth Quarter is an unfiltered conversation between formerly incarcerated men about what prison takes, what it teaches, and what comes after. The game isn't over. There's always another quarter.

Hosts: Hasan Brown, Brad McCorkle, Ross

CHAPTERS

0:00 Cold open: Friday ice cream

0:31 Who paid for your sentence?

6:56 When it finally hit home

19:26 Two lives, two identities

24:59 What's done in the dark

31:41 5Q By The Numbers: who funds prison?

35:24 Does your family owe you loyalty?

40:49 Control the controllables

44:13 Rebuilding trust and therapy

55:13 Stay, Leave, or It Depends

1:08:13 Who shows up: $50, a letter, ice cream

1:15:41 RSAs: life on supervised release

1:20:39 Your PO is not your friend

1:23:51 Staying away from old habits

1:27:17 Always another quarter

Hasan took a four-level leader enhancement, sat for two meetings with multiple federal agencies, and at sentencing the government filed a 5K1.1 substantial-assistance motion for him. So he puts the question to Brad and Ross straight up: did he snitch?

Brad comes from the old school, and for him the line is the betrayal: sitting down against your co-defendants. Ross says RDAP gave him a different word for it: accountability. The three of them get into telling on yourself versus telling on someone else, what happens when people who have never been in trouble get caught up in the process, and the men still doing time out of loyalty to a code.

In 5Q By The Numbers, Hasan asks how many federal defendants actually receive a 5K1.1 departure. Brad guessed 85 percent. Ross guessed 65. The real number is about 8 in 100.

Then the conversation turns to what comes after: finishing what you start, the booms the three of them have lived through, and why Hasan, who is not a coder, says AI is the tool anyone with imagination and patience should be learning now.

Where do you draw the line between snitching and cooperating? Tell us in the comments.

This episode reflects our personal experiences and general discussion. It is not legal advice.

5Q BY THE NUMBERS

Substantial-assistance departures. Source: U.S. Sentencing Commission, FY2025 Sourcebook of Federal Sentencing Statistics, Table 37, note 1: of the 66,662 individuals sentenced federally in fiscal year 2025, 5,423 received a §5K1.1 substantial-assistance departure below the guideline range. That is about 8 in 100.

https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-publications/annual-reports-and-sourcebooks/2025/Table37.pdf

https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-publications/annual-reports-and-sourcebooks/2025/Table01.pdf

The Fifth Quarter is an unfiltered conversation between formerly incarcerated men about what prison takes, what it teaches, and what comes after. The game isn't over. There's always another quarter.

Hosts: Hasan Brown, Brad McCorkle, Ross

CHAPTERS

0:00 Cold open: "I got a 5K. Did I snitch?"

0:32 Hasan puts his own case on the table

1:39 What does "snitch" mean to you?

2:12 Telling on yourself vs. telling on someone else

4:29 Why "snitch" means something different to everyone

5:54 Snitch or cooperator?

8:04 RDAP and the power of accountability

10:26 Prison: the ultimate accountability

12:25 There's no "but"

14:28 Brad: where I draw the line

15:53 Loyal to a code over family

16:22 5Q By The Numbers: how many get a 5K?

17:51 What "substantial assistance" means to us

19:44 Ross: 100 people on one indictment

22:01 When first-timers get caught up

24:57 Forgiving the people who turned

25:48 What a year in prison can teach you

27:38 Finishers win

29:19 Brad: finish what you start

30:37 Is college still the move?

32:11 Four booms, three generations

33:16 Who is really building wealth right now?

36:56 "I'm not a coder": building with AI

40:39 A month instead of a four-year degree

42:05 AI is a tool

43:14 Social media meets the AI boom

47:04 Brad's phone dies

48:31 Why we keep talking

49:30 Close

Hasan paid $175,000 for a federal defense attorney. At his bond revocation hearing the judge gave him ten days to report to prison, and his lawyer's entire contribution was two words. Brad changed attorneys in the middle of his case too. Ross has been through three federal cases: one lawyer he paid for, two the court appointed.

This episode is about what that choice actually costs. What separates real advice from the answer you want to hear. Whether a bigger retainer buys you anything at all. Why federal and district experience mattered in our cases. And the red flags that would make us end a consultation before it starts.

Brad closes it out with an RSA about betrayal, grief, and choosing grace.

What question do you wish you'd asked before hiring a lawyer? Tell us in the comments.

This episode reflects our personal experiences and general discussion. It is not legal advice.

5Q BY THE NUMBERS

Acceptance of responsibility. Source: U.S. Sentencing Commission, 2025 Sourcebook of Federal Sentencing Statistics, Table 22. Of the 61,245 federal cases in fiscal year 2025 for which the Commission received complete guideline application information, 96.1% received an acceptance-of-responsibility reduction: 35.7% a two-level adjustment and 60.4% a three-level adjustment. 3.9% received no adjustment.

Guilty pleas. Source: same Sourcebook, Table 11. Of 66,662 federal sentencing cases in fiscal year 2025, 65,099 were resolved by a guilty plea and 1,563 went to trial, which is 97.7% and 2.3%. This is a different denominator from the figure above.

https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-publications/annual-reports-and-sourcebooks/2025/2025_Sourcebook.pdf

Who has a lawyer. Source: U.S. Courts, 15 July 2025: "Over 90 percent of defendants in federal criminal cases have court-appointed counsel, because they cannot afford their own lawyer."

https://www.uscourts.gov/data-news/judiciary-news/2025/07/15/funding-crisis-leaves-defense-lawyers-working-without-pay

The Fifth Quarter is an unfiltered conversation between formerly incarcerated men about what prison takes, what it teaches, and what comes after. The game isn't over. There's always another quarter.

Hosts: Hasan Brown, Brad McCorkle, Ross

CHAPTERS

0:00 Cold open

0:16 Can the wrong lawyer cost you years?

1:34 Real advice vs. the answer you want

3:17 5Q By The Numbers: who actually has a court-appointed lawyer

4:37 $100K and inexperienced, or a federal specialist?

6:51 When your lawyer and the judge go way back

8:53 Does paying more buy you control?

10:16 What Hasan thought $175,000 was buying

15:11 "$175,000 for 'will do'"

16:02 The $50,000 phone call

16:59 Brad and the pre-indictment window

18:46 Chef Wednesdays, then the revocation

22:02 "$400,000 for trial, or $200,000 to plead"

24:38 Ross: one lawyer he paid for, two the court appointed

26:07 How appointed counsel can work

29:56 Should your lawyer fear the prosecutor?

34:51 Lay low and play slow

35:56 Information vs. indictment

39:22 Ross's 14-page letter to the judge

41:28 Brad's PSA: speaking at sentencing

44:58 The mindset shift

46:06 RDAP, accountability, and learning to apologize

51:43 The street psychologist

53:55 5Q By The Numbers: acceptance of responsibility

55:50 The correction: the real numbers

57:59 Is your lawyer a salesperson?

1:00:37 What the judge sees when you walk in

1:06:11 Tears in the courtroom

1:08:33 The word RICO

1:13:07 Red flag, green flag: "I know the prosecutor"

1:16:17 Red flag, green flag: trial is a separate fee

1:21:10 Red flag, green flag: "I've never practiced in this district"

1:24:09 Brad's RSA: grace after betrayal

1:31:53 Close

Three men who met in federal prison, came home, and are rebuilding money, reputation and relationships in public.

This week a fourth man sits down with them. Adam James did his time at FPC Montgomery alongside all three of us, and Hasan mentored him through part of RDAP. He runs a behavioral health agency in Tulsa now. He came on with a claim that split the table before we were ten minutes in: none of us were ever broken.

Ross says that is not true of him. He says he was broken, and he says it plainly. Brad says he walked out of the program with a completely different outlook than the one he walked in with. Hasan says he did not know he was a mess until he got to prison. Four men, the same program, four different answers to the same question, and none of them back down.

The argument underneath it is about what rehabilitation actually is. Adam's position is that RDAP did not rehabilitate him. It gave him tools and it gave him language, but what changed him was people. People rehabilitate people. We put the numbers next to that claim early, because the claim deserves them: of the people released in 2010, 48.2 percent of those who completed RDAP were rearrested within eight years, against 68.0 percent of people who were eligible and did not get it. Adjust for everything else and completers were 27 percent less likely to be rearrested. So the program does something. The question is what, and to whom.

Then it gets personal. Adam could have gone home sooner and chose to stay in the program longer than he had to, and he explains why in a way that is harder to argue with than the statistics. Ross tells the story of the man who lied to the whole compound about his out date and was simply gone one morning, which turns into a rule: never tell anyone when you are leaving. Adam talks about walking around deliberately disheveled, shirt untucked, because he did not want anyone thinking he was smart. In there, being smart is a target.

We spend a long stretch on where selling yourself ends and lying begins, and we do not land it neatly. One man calls it embellishing. Another calls it a lie. By the end of it we are not sure those are two different things, and that is roughly where the conversation leaves it.

There is also the part where Adam admits what he thought this show was. He assumed we had invited him on to expose him. Then he asked himself one question about that assumption, and the answer changed what kind of conversation this became.

And there is a room full of grown men crying in RDAP, which Adam describes without flinching and counts himself in.

We close with his RSA of the Week. RSA stands for rational self analysis: you take a mental snapshot of what set you off, before you act on it. His is about the story he told himself on the way here. After that, the GOAT speech, which you should hear him tell rather than have us describe.

If you have ever wondered whether prison broke you, or whether you were carrying something in long before you got there, this one is for you.

CHAPTERS

0:00 Were We Ever Broken?

0:10 Back With the Men He Did Time With

2:04 5Q By The Numbers: Does RDAP Work?

5:42 What Did You Want Out of RDAP?

9:50 The Argument That Made Him Sign Up

14:45 He Stayed Longer Than He Had To

18:37 Never Tell Anyone Your Out Date

19:57 Adam the Storyteller

27:15 Selling, Embellishing or Lying?

36:00 Reinventing vs. Rewriting Your Story

37:57 Redefining Success After Prison

44:18 Grown Men Crying in RDAP

45:47 People Rehabilitate People

47:37 None of Us Were Broken?

53:07 My Original State Was Never a Foundation

56:25 Money or Mission?

1:04:30 Adam's RSA: The Story He Told Himself

1:07:07 The GOAT Speech

1:11:12 Playing It Down to Survive

Source for the RDAP numbers: U.S. Sentencing Commission, "Recidivism and Federal Bureau of Prisons Programs: Drug Program Participants Released in 2010" (May 2022).

THE GAME ISN'T OVER, THERE'S ALWAYS ANOTHER QUARTER.

New episodes every Thursday, 7 PM ET.

Brad McCorkle and Ross served federal time. In this episode they answer the question the system never asks out loud: if prison is supposed to rehabilitate people, what actually changes the men who come home?

They talk about what prison really teaches, why re-arrest rates fall so sharply with age, what a camp costs a man's body, and the people who genuinely changed them. It is not a comfortable conversation and it does not land where you think.

"Did it make you a better criminal?" "No, it did not make me a better criminal." "We went to criminal university. That's what prison is."

The two numbers at the centre of this episode are re-arrest rates by age at release, from the United States Sentencing Commission's recidivism research: about 70.1% for people released before age 21, and about 16.4% for people released after age 60. Age at release is one of the strongest predictors there is. What the three of them cannot agree on is why.

CHAPTERS

0:00 Cold open

0:10 The robe, and the question from last week

1:07 What the Sentencing Commission found

6:37 70.1% vs 16.4%: what age does to re-arrest

9:36 Ledbetter, 80 years old, and a fresh five

12:33 What actually changed us

15:12 The skills prison really teaches

18:19 Learning to weigh consequences

27:21 "Did it make you a better criminal?"

28:36 "We went to criminal university"

30:22 The traits we brought home

39:16 The people you are forced to live with

45:32 Changing the environment

50:39 What the body pays

57:18 Can a program change anyone?

1:03:18 Burnout on both sides of the desk

1:06:11 Do they even know their job?

1:09:18 Next week: Adam James

Hosted by Hasan Brown with Brad McCorkle and Ross.

THE FIFTH QUARTER

Head. Hustle. Heart. The game isn't over — there's always another quarter. New episode every Thursday, 7:00 PM ET.

#TheFifthQuarter #PrisonReform #Reentry #CriminalJustice #Rebuilding

Nathan "Nate" Richard went to prison four times. Fifteen years, all told.

What broke the cycle was not the fourth sentence. Ask him and he says his son first. Then he tells you about a church service in county jail, before that last bid even started, that he only walked into because his brother would be there.

He rode a bike thirteen miles each way to parenting classes to get custody of his son. He spent three years as a freight broker. He now runs Felon Entrepreneur, an app with free jobs and business resources for people coming home: a job-finder map, resumes it fills in and sends for you, AA and NA meeting listings, and a course library.

Hasan, Brad and Ross put the numbers in front of him, and then get out of the way.

This is the first guest episode in the show's history.

CHAPTERS

0:00 Cold open

0:45 Meet Nathan - the felon entrepreneur

2:08 Four times, fifteen years

3:48 What was different about the last time

4:32 5Q by the Numbers: how many get re-arrested?

6:08 The realest thing I could do was be a father

8:26 Is prison designed to rehabilitate anyone?

12:40 Return to prison: one in two

14:39 Untreated addiction, and why people go back

19:43 Just get a job - the employment numbers

22:20 You can get a job. Just not the one you want

31:14 What prison actually taught me

34:09 Brad's grandmother

37:17 Grief you can't put anywhere

40:00 Nathan's mother

44:35 Rebuilding wasn't one big break

47:54 The plea, and the brother who beat the case

50:54 Why I still sleep at night

55:03 A church service he only went to for his brother

59:34 Ross on the church, and what it cost him

1:03:39 A crack baby who couldn't read until eleven

1:05:04 How the three of them actually met

1:12:26 The app, and testing it honestly

1:14:56 Did you ever get triggered?

1:17:27 RSA in real time

1:20:12 Life ain't over

THE NUMBERS IN THIS EPISODE

Every statistic quoted is from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. The framing matters as much as the figure, so here it is in full.

71% re-arrested within five years. BJS, 34-state study of 2012 prison releases, five-year follow-up. An arrest is not a conviction - the episode says so on tape, and it is the difference between a number and a smear.

46% returned to prison within five years. Same study, the 21 states that report return-to-prison data. This counts returns for a parole or probation violation OR a new charge - not new convictions alone.

33% had no formal employment at all in four years. BJS, Employment of Persons Released from Federal Prison in 2010, NCJ 303147. Of roughly 51,500 people released from federal prison in 2010 whose records could be linked to Census employment data, 33% had no recorded formal employment during any of the 16 quarters after release. Which also means two in three did find work at some point. It counts formal, on-the-books earnings - not informal or self-employed income - and it is not a current unemployment rate.

GUEST

Nathan "Nate" Richard - @felon_entrepreneur

THE FIFTH QUARTER

Life ain't over. There's always another quarter.

Three men who went to federal prison sit down with a statistic that does not fit the story anyone tells about crime.63.4% of federal prisoners reported legal employment in the 30 days before the arrest that led to their incarceration. 53.5% reported a full-time job. Among prisoners serving time for property offenses — fraud, theft, burglary — the figure is 80.0%. Most of them were working.So Hasan asks Brad and Ross the only question those numbers leave: you had a job. Why were you still committing crime?What comes back is not what any of them expected. It turns into an argument about a single word — manipulation — that none of the three will give up. Then into a live demonstration of the thing this show is named around, when one of them gets triggered on camera and works through it in real time.Sources for the figures in this episode: Bureau of Justice Statistics, "Employment of State and Federal Prisoners Prior to Incarceration, 2016" and "Parents in Prison and Their Minor Children: Survey of Prison Inmates, 2016", both drawn from the 2016 Survey of Prison Inmates. These are descriptive survey statistics. They do not show that employment caused, prevented or explained anything.CHAPTERS0:00 Cold open0:46 A lot of people assume crime starts with no job1:05 5Q By The Numbers: how many were legally employed?1:25 Brad guesses2:14 The answer: 63.4 percent2:35 Property offenses: fraud, theft, burglary3:08 Four out of five were working3:51 How many had children?5:42 You had a job. Why were you still committing crime?6:00 I was emotionally jacked up7:14 I never looked at how much time I could get8:40 By the time I was indicted, I'd stopped10:14 Somebody else got a slap on the wrist11:06 Corporate America, then the fast money13:37 I didn't think what I took was a lot16:00 I chose the easy way out16:37 I was thirty-one17:41 The longest pause on the show18:29 Inside Brad's Car Case22:20 Do former hustlers romanticise the hustle?23:31 Fast money is a drug25:14 The gambler's fix26:47 Preachers, speakers and who gets paid29:48 You took the skills from pastoring30:39 I don't like that you used the word manipulation31:23 Coercion is a negative behaviour31:50 There's a better term: persuasion32:23 Brad reads the definition32:39 Talk somebody off a bridge33:40 This is how we all ended up in prison34:44 What RDAP taught us about words37:05 Ross defends the timeline38:57 I made more money doing it legit40:13 A business takes ten years41:34 RSA of the week43:35 Let's do this one in real time45:09 My impulse was aggression46:38 I know you both better than you know each other50:40 Bill Maher: avoid the criminal justice system53:07 Hasan's RSA53:47 Wisdom is arguing less54:34 Next week, and the sign-offTHE FIFTH QUARTERHead. Hustle. Heart. The game isn't over — there's always another quarter.New episode every Thursday, 7:00 PM ET.

Three men who met in federal prison, came home, and are rebuilding money, reputation and relationships in public.

This episode opens with a new segment: 5Q By The Numbers. Hasan brings federal statistics Ross and Brad have not seen, and their first reaction is on camera. No preparation, no chance to think about how it sounds.

The numbers are worse than either of them guessed. 76 percent of people sentenced federally last year also got supervised release. 107,565 people are under federal post-conviction supervision right now. And 67 percent of the people sent back went back on a technical violation, meaning no new crime at all. A missed appointment. A late report. Travelling outside your district. Changing where you live or where you work.

That leads to the first question: when your prison sentence ends, are you actually free?

Ross and Brad have eight years of supervised release between them, and the answer comes down almost entirely to who your probation officer is. One officer told Brad he could not be self-employed, and he had to sit there and explain to her what a corporation is. Ross has a mid-815 FICO score he is not allowed to use, because his conditions bar him from using his own social security number for credit. Five years on top of the three he did inside. Eight years handicapped, in a country built on credit, over a case that had nothing to do with credit.

The second half is harder. The federal government's own 2025 data says 98 percent of cases end in a guilty plea. Brad explains the court tax, which most people find out about after the verdict: plead, and you are looking at roughly a fifth of the maximum. Make them prove it and lose, and the judge hits you over the head for it.

So Hasan asks the question with no comfortable answer. If 98 percent plead guilty, is everybody guilty? Or are the feds simply better at this than everyone else?

Brad's answer is about money. Ask what the people who beat the feds have in common and it is not innocence. Ross's answer is about the six men charged alongside him. One went to trial. He did more time than the other five combined.

We close with the RSA of the Week. RSA stands for rational self analysis: you take a mental snapshot of what set you off before you act on it.

If you are on supervised release, about to come home, or have never understood why almost nobody goes to trial, this one is for you.

CHAPTERS

0:00 Cold open

0:56 5Q By The Numbers: a new segment

7:14 Are you actually free on supervised release?

12:41 An 815 FICO score he is not allowed to use

21:26 Starting the rebuild with nothing on the report

28:28 You come home with $5,000. What do you do with it?

32:22 A push mower, a weed eater, ten bands a month

34:39 The industry that recruits straight out of prison

37:08 Is the criminal justice system about justice?

37:53 What a court tax actually is

41:51 What the people who beat the feds have in common

45:48 Can an imperfect system produce a just result?

55:21 If you sentenced yourself, what would you give?

58:28 What supervised release was supposed to be

65:28 One of six went to trial. He did more than all of us combined.

66:04 RSA of the Week

68:35 Brad: the conversation he almost shut down

THE GAME ISN'T OVER, THERE'S ALWAYS ANOTHER QUARTER.

New episodes every Thursday, 7 PM ET.

Watch the video version on YouTube: @TheFifthQuarterPodcast

Three men who met in federal prison, came home, and are rebuilding money, reputation and relationships in public.

This episode asks two questions that do not have comfortable answers. The first is when prison actually leaves you. Not the day you walk out, but the day it stops running in the background. The second one we turn on ourselves: would we hire someone with our own conviction?

We start with what never fully left. Brad has been home four years and still froze in a gas station cooler because he heard a set of keys. For Ross it is whistling, because whistling was how the compound passed word that the officers were coming. There is the regimen from solitary, the locker that held everything you owned in the world, the coffee and the morning news, and the way a room full of talking is now unbearable.

Then we make it uncomfortable. Hasan plays devil's advocate and asks the question an employer is actually thinking: you committed a crime, so why should I take the risk on you when I have other applicants? Ross does not flinch. Brad answers it a completely different way, by hearing the insult first and working out why the man said it before he says anything back. Both answers are worth sitting with, and they are not the same answer.

Along the way: whether you would hire someone convicted of your exact crime, who stays off limits no matter what, why sounding educated and being educated are not the same thing, and why a clean record on the surface is not proof of a clean person underneath.

We close with our RSA of the Week. RSA stands for rational self analysis: you take a mental snapshot of what set you off before you act on it. Ross gets a text about school clothes that reads like a setup. Brad has an employee cancel a Saturday shift the day after committing to it. And Hasan gets a drunk phone call at two in the morning from a friend driving for DoorDash, who rang to argue with the man who showed him the math.

That math is in here too. 215 dollars for a twelve hour day and 238 miles driven works out to 17 dollars and 38 cents an hour. Take out what the IRS says the car costs you to run and it is 3 dollars and 78 cents. As Ross puts it, that is waiter money without the tips.

If you have ever wondered what actually stays with you after the sentence, and whether anyone will take a chance on you once it is over, this one is for you.

CHAPTERS

0:00 Cold open1:58 When does prison finally leave you?3:29 Still tripping off keys9:37 Habits from the hole14:13 Your whole world in one locker18:40 Prison taught me I am not that significant23:55 Asking a friend for honest feedback28:30 Eleven months in solitary32:16 Would you take it back?36:16 Would you hire someone with your own conviction?45:15 Sounding educated is not being educated50:31 Devil's advocate: why should anyone take the risk?54:18 A clean record is not proof of a clean person59:35 RSA of the Week1:06:53 Hasan: the DoorDash call1:07:32 17 dollars an hour, and what is left after expenses1:12:16 Brad: the employee who cancelled

THE GAME ISN'T OVER, THERE'S ALWAYS ANOTHER QUARTER.

New episodes every Thursday, 7 PM ET.

Watch the video version on YouTube: @TheFifthQuarterPodcast