Harry Peña: From Prison to Purpose

When a rash decision changed the course of his life, Harry Peña spent decades behind bars. But prison didn't break him — it revealed his purpose. Determined to turn his painful past into a force for good, Harry founded the Life Impacters Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to disrupting the incarceration and recidivism cycle that traps so many formerly incarcerated people. 

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
I'm an entrepreneur, and I knew it early on in life.
I was an entrepreneur in drugdealing.
When I dealt drugs, I mademoney.
I just didn't know that later ondown in life, I would see it
from the legal perspectiveinstead of the

SPEAKER_00 (00:14):
illegal perspective.
That's Harry Pena.
We joined him for a virtualinterview.
He greets us with a warm smile.
Sitting by the window of a cafe,he sips coffee with one hand and
waves to familiar faces thatpass by.
This is an interview with HarryPena for Change Agents, the

(00:35):
podcast.
I'm Mason McKee, and myco-producer is Red Frumkin.
Our co-writers are MJ Jacobsonand Simra Qasim.

(00:59):
Over the course of threeinterviews with Harry, we
learned he grew up in Chicago'sHumboldt Park, a neighborhood
that struggles with high crime.
Harry faced abuse at home,leading him to look for support
elsewhere.
At just 10, he found himselfjoining a gang.
So at the

SPEAKER_01 (01:14):
age of 10,

SPEAKER_00 (01:14):
I shot my first

SPEAKER_01 (01:16):
victim.
That's the first time I put abullet in somebody.
And it was because I was beinginitiated into the gang at that
time.
10 years old, spewing.
That moment would kind ofsolidify By

SPEAKER_00 (01:26):
12 years old, Pena was in and out of schools and
detention centers, living on thestreets and couches of friends
and girlfriends.

SPEAKER_01 (01:35):
I was, I've experienced the brutality aspect
of life, how evil life can be.
I was acting out and I wasalready at the house at 12.
I was living in the streets at12 years old.
By the time I was 15

SPEAKER_00 (01:49):
years old, I was already out of school.
By 15, he had his first son andswore off crime, finding steady
employment and new purpose.
However, at 24, an accident lefthim with a broken ankle and
unable to support his family.
Feeling desperate, Pena agreedto join fellow gang members who
were planning to rob aconvenience store.

(02:14):
But on the way to theconvenience store, Harry, a
devout man of faith, believesdivine intervention tried to
lead him down a different path.

SPEAKER_01 (02:22):
While we're on our way over there, I was getting
ready to happen, and I hear thevoice again.
Son, don't do it.
You'll be gone a long time.
I don't want to do this no more.
We got to go.
Somebody's going to get killed.
I gave the gun to thisindividual, and I threw my hands
off, and he put it back in myface and said, you came to do a
job, you're going to do it.

SPEAKER_00 (02:39):
A man was killed during the robbery that night.
Harry fled, but was taken intocustody.
A little over a week later,Harry, along with the two other
men, were charged with capitalmurder and armed robbery.

SPEAKER_01 (02:50):
All I can remember was looking at the judge, and
the judge out telling theprosecutor because the
prosecutor wanted the deathpenalty because it was a capital
murder case.

SPEAKER_00 (03:02):
Harry was instead sentenced to 45 years for
first-degree murder and armedrobbery.
He ultimately served 22 and ahalf years in prison.
During his incarceration, Harrysaw countless men granted
release, only to see them backagain soon after.
He began to wonder about thecyclical nature of
incarceration.

SPEAKER_01 (03:20):
It was at that time period I began to get, you know,
these thoughts about How do weimpact a community that's been
impacted by incarceration?
It's all around me.
I was in it.
I lived in it.
And I can see people coming backand forth from prison.

SPEAKER_00 (03:38):
Nine years into his incarceration, Harry's curiosity
turned to activism.
That's when he and his wife,Yolanda, created Life Impactors
Foundation, or LIF.
LIF aims to curb recidivism andend what they call permanent
punishments, which follow menand women with criminal records,
limiting their access to jobs,education, and housing.

SPEAKER_01 (04:00):
We want to curb recidivism, but we do that in a
way where we teach you skillsthat that you may not have.
And if you do have, we helpcultivate the skill set that you
do have so that when you go backout into the workforce, you're
able to get a job.
Our sole purpose is to giveindividuals a true sense of the

(04:22):
word of second chance, theirsecond chance at life.

SPEAKER_00 (04:26):
Their work centers around advocacy, mentorship, and
workforce training, such astheir reentry curriculum called
Getting Ahead and the LAFReentry Housing Workshop.

UNKNOWN (04:36):
Music

SPEAKER_00 (04:38):
For Harry, the people he works with aren't
defined by the mistakes they'vemade.
He advocates and assists anyonewho may come through the doors
of life impactors.
I have an

SPEAKER_01 (04:47):
opportunity to actually fight for 4.1 million
individuals that havebackgrounds in the state of
Illinois and not know theirfaces yet love them enough to
fight for them.
Not knowing their names, notknowing their situation, but yet
fight for them.

SPEAKER_00 (05:07):
Pena's commitment to his work sometimes forces him to
address the trauma he faced as achild.
He told us about struggling towork with a man guilty of
abusing his own children.

SPEAKER_01 (05:17):
In that moment when I asked him how he was doing, I
could see his eyes swelled up.
And he just started weeping.
It was the most hardest thingthat I had to go through.
Didn't value life, didn't careabout children.
And I saw an individual that wasbroken.
And in that moment...
I heard a voice inside of myheart and he said, are you going

(05:41):
to love him or are you going tokill him?
And I made a decision in thatvery moment to love him.
And by loving him means that Iwould not judge him for what he
did.
But I chose in that moment tolove him.

SPEAKER_00 (05:59):
Harry believes that his commitment to the power of
redemption comes from a highercalling.
His faith is what guides him inhis work.

SPEAKER_01 (06:06):
It would seem ironic as it is that the same people
that hurt me, God would use toteach me how to love.
And so every act of lovecompounded in itself, I

SPEAKER_00 (06:18):
began to visualize what love was really about.
Drawing upon his pastexperiences, Pena lends his
advice to others currentlyexperiencing reentry barriers.
Harry sees himself as a guide,using Life Impactors Foundation
to foster empowerment andpositivity.

SPEAKER_01 (06:34):
And so now today I walk in that luck because I
understand the need of man.
I didn't know I had back thenbecause all I knew was darkness.
Forgiveness is the beginning ofit all.
That's how I live my life now.
You know, there's space forforgiveness and redemption.