The plight of the penitent? (5,5)

'the plight of' is the definition.
I don't know anything about this answer so I cannot tell whether it can be defined by this definition.

'penitent?' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'penitent?' could be 'sorry' (similar in meaning) and 'sorry' is found within the answer.
The remaining letters 'state' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't understand.
This explanation may well be incorrect...

'the' is the link.

Can you help me to learn more?