Oscar Parham was just five years old – the youngest of eight children growing up in
Zion, Illinois – when his father, a local business owner, had a heart attack and died in
front of him. The impact and aftermath of his loss of his father and role model – with
ensuing financial, emotional, and family struggles – ultimately led to his decision to drop
out of school at age 16 and join a gang that Oscar believed to be his second “family.”

In 1988, when Oscar was 18, others who he had associated with in the gang were
involved in fatal shooting, while Oscar – with no history of violent crime – was miles
away. Oscar had no involvement or knowledge of the event until well after the fact.
Prosecutors nonetheless charged Oscar, together with four co-defendants, with two
counts of first-degree murder.

Prosecutors forced Oscar to make a quick and painful choice with lifelong
consequences: plead guilty and be eligible for release after five and a half years—or
take his chances at trial. Oscar could not plead guilty to a crime he knew he did not
commit, so he went to trial with his public defender, and was found guilty. The judge,
who had been prepared to accept a plea deal that would have allowed Oscar’s release
in under 6 years, instead issued the only sentence available to him: mandatory life in
prison with no possibility of parole.

Oscar felt that his family “was forced to do the time with” him, as his children were left
without a present father and his siblings helped to take care of him. Despite his
devastating sentence, Oscar (known to his friends as “Smiley”) remained relentlessly
upbeat throughout his prison term, searching for opportunities for self-improvement. He
wrote, leaned into his faith, and began taking Bible study classes and college level
courses, beginning with a seminar on mass incarceration. In 2017, Oscar enrolled in a
program at North Park Theological Seminary, which had just opened a partnership with
Stateville prison, where Oscar pursued Master of Arts degree in Christian Ministry and
Restorative Arts. That program and experience provided far more than a classroom
education; it gave Oscar an opportunity to develop his voice, together with skillsets in
trauma-informed practices, debate, mentoring, mental health issues, communication
and critical thinking skills, a supportive community, and much more – providing
foundational skills and experiences that Oscar came to draw on in his own work with
young people.

Oscar’s compelling life story—together with his relentless optimism, work ethic, and
skillsets developed by his educational and person achievements—fueled his rise in
leadership and recognition as a prison spokesperson. He participated in a prison
debate team, advocating for the State of Illinois to reinstate parole opportunities for
prisoners serving long or life sentences, and spoke regularly with large numbers of state
representatives and senators, a local area Congresswoman, the Lieutenant Governor,
and other officials about his story and the need for reform. Oscar wrote his own clemency and post-conviction advocacy briefs, eventually convincing the State to commute his sentence and, in the summer of 2019, to be eligible for immediate release.

Oscar, determined to continue his education following his release, earned his master’s
degree in May of 2022. In 2020, while pursuing his education, Oscar began working full
time as a Youth and Mentorship Director for Legacy Reentry Foundation, a local non-
profit, where Oscar worked to strengthen his community and help provide adolescents
with the support systems and opportunities that was absent from his life at that age.

In 2024, Oscar Parham founded and serves as Chief Executive Officer of Home Away
From Home Youth Development and Reentry. Partnering with community leaders,
social service support networks, local businesses, and law enforcement, Home Away
From Home provides a supportive second “family” for under-resourced children,
adolescents, and young adults, ages 10-24. Engaging with others in the community, in
youth detention centers, or in that uniquely vulnerable period transitioning from
detention back into home, community, or school settings, Home Away From Home
utilizes data-driven hands-on methods to cultivate self-esteem and life skills, facilitate
education support, and introduce young people to job, career and entrepreneurship
opportunities, while having fun and being providing supportive, non-judgmental and
constructive space to help navigate personal challenges safely and productively.

Home Away From Home—with gratitude and humility, and by actively engaging with and
listening to the young people we serve—strives to encourage, teach, coach, prepare,
mentor, and uplift young people. We welcome and invite you to meet with us, to learn
about our work, and to partner with us. Our kids and our community deserve nothing
less.