In 2013, Cabral won the Lo Maximo award from Homeboy Industries, which honors HI service recipients who give back to the community.
Richard Cabral grew up in East Los Angeles in a second-generation Mexican-American family. He became active in gang activity from an early age. He said in an interview with Entertainment Tonight that his family had been a part of the gang scene since the 1970s. He was a documented member of a gang in the city of Montebello. When he was a child, he was separated from his family. He was incarcerated at the age of 13 for stealing a wallet. Cabral developed an addiction to crack cocaine by the age of 15. He obtained his GED as a teenager but once again got in trouble with the law. He was sentenced to prison for violent assault with a deadly weapon; he was released at the age of 25.
While Cabral was trying to turn his life around, his friends recommended he seek out the services of Homeboy Industries, a gang-intervention program based in Los Angeles. He began to act. In 2009, Cabral appeared in the television show Southland. In 2010, he appeared in the music video for Bruno Mars' single "Grenade".
In 2013, Cabral won the Lo Maximo award from Homeboy Industries, which honors HI Service recipients who give back to the community.
In 2015, Cabral starred in the mini-series American Crime, in which he portrayed the character Hector Tontz. For his role, Cabral was nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or a Movie at the 2015 Primetime Emmy Awards.
In 2016, Cabral co-wrote with Robert Egan a one-man show called Fighting Shadows, about his experiences as a former gang member who spent years in and out of prison.
