At 12 He Dealt Drugs, At 16 He Was Charged With Murder. Now He Advocates for Prison Reform
Mario Bueno describes his transformation during 19 years in prison for a murder he was convicted of at 16, and how he now mentors juveniles and people returning from prison, including through LUCK, Inc., the nonprofit he co-founded.
About This Episode
At the age of 16, Mario Bueno was convicted of second-degree murder and spent the next nineteen years in prison — three of which were in solitary confinement. Today, he is a reform expert, author, scholar, and co-founder of LUCK, Inc., an organization dedicated toward mentoring vulnerable populations within the Detroit Metropolitan Area. On this episode of Open Mike, Mario takes the reins and describes the effects prison had on his formative years, the spiritual awakenings he experienced along the way, and community outreach programs he’s currently engaged with.
Show Notes
- Mario Bueno’s background and bio
- Mario, welcome to the show!
- At age sixteen you were convicted of second-degree murder of a twenty-seven-year-old drug dealer… did you please guilty to that murder?
- You maintained your innocence, but you were found guilty in the second trial?
- It sounds like, now, you admit that you were involved in that murder?
- One of the problems with the criminal justice system is that it pits victim and perpetrator against each other and can prevent the offender from truly owning up to what they’ve done.
- We have an 87% recidivism rate within nine years of someone’s release from prison.
- To be able to truly convey remorse to a victim or victim’s family is restorative justice. Mario’s nonprofit, Luck, Inc. focuses on this type of justice through peer mentoring of at-risk populations.
- What was prison like once you admitted responsibility and reached out to the victim’s family? Were you trying to help other prisoners come to their truth as well? What was that process like?
- The year you spent in Oakland County solitary as a sixteen-year-old… was that the worst year out of the twenty you spent in prison?
- We need to reexamine the practice of solitary confinement — it’s inhumane.
- It took a few years for your personal and spiritual transformation to really sink in and manifest, it sounds like?
- Mario wrote a thesis titled, Incarceration of Adolescents in Adult Prisons: Adults’ Recollections of their Experiences and its Impact on Adult Adjustment in which he measured juveniles who were housed with adults and how they cope with the outside world once they’re released. One of the findings was that in order for juveniles to survive an adult prison, they have to become “conscious sociopaths” as a coping mechanism.
- There’s so much to unpack. You’re a McNair Scholar, creator of a nonprofit with twelve employees, author of two books — Reformed: Memoir of a Juvenile Killer and Never Going Back, which you wrote during the pandemic lockdown…
- There are 2,400 parolees in Detroit at any given time and 75% of them are unemployed. There are 8,400 people on felony probationers at any given time and 45% are unemployed. Mario had to create his own employment opportunities because, even with his prolific output, he’s unable to apply for and get a traditional job.
- You said you were kicked out of one of your prisons… why was that? It was making money stuff, not violent stuff?
- Mario details the poker and tobacco schemes he ran in prison and how a heart-to-heart with a warden influenced him to change his perspective and his behavior while he fulfilled the rest of his sentence.
- If you shift your belief system, you can shift cycles you find yourself stuck in.
- What did you change after coming to that realization?
- What are you doing right now, through your organizations, to help Detroiters and Michiganders?
- Mario is a community engagement coordinator for the Youth Justice Fund, servicing juvenile lifers who are returning back to the community. Luck, Inc. is also helping parolees find housing after extended sentences and helping guide them along their journey.
- We’re spending $2.2 billion on the Michigan Department of Corrections and $123 million on reentry.
- If you’re a parolee, there are government programs and amazing people like you who can provide support and consulting to help them back on their feet. But if you’re exonerated for a crime you didn’t commit, you get nothing. There are no benefits, the government won’t pay for any personal coaching. Did you know about that difference?
- Mario, I don’t think we’ve ever had a guest on Open Mike who I’ve let just talk and talk — but your stories and energy are so damn good and infectious and meaningful and powerful! And I commend you for everything you’re doing and everything you’ve learned and how you’re giving back to the community. I smell a movie coming!
- When we believe we’re designed to succeed, we develop a relationship with self. And a relationship with self that’s defined by love allows us to love others. Hurt people hurt others.
- The services in our system must be better. A greater percentage of the billions spent on the system has to be allocated toward rehabilitation and helping people.
- It was an honor to have you on, Mario — go do God’s work!
- Mario Bueno — there was something about the way he talked and the messaging he delivered that was fascinating and moving. If you know of someone who could be moved by his message, please share, subscribe. Thanks for watching us on Open Mike —until next time!
FAQs
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What crime was Mario Bueno convicted of?
Bueno says that at 16 he was charged with felony murder and armed robbery, which was dropped to open murder. His first trial, where he used an alibi defense, ended in a hung jury split six to six; at the second trial, he says, the jury compromised on second-degree murder, and he was sentenced to 22 to 40 years. Mike Morse described the victim as a 27-year-old drug dealer.
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How did Mario Bueno come to accept responsibility for the murder?
Bueno says that after about seven years he stopped appealing, and he found closure by writing a letter accepting responsibility and apologizing, which he sent to the Oakland County prosecutor, asking that the victim’s family receive it. In it he explained that if he had had the character to accept responsibility at 16, he would never have done it to begin with.
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What is LUCK, Inc.?
LUCK, Inc. is the nonprofit Bueno co-founded. He describes it as a place where the problem becomes the solution, with peer mentors leading the way for other high-risk populations. He says its team was certified and trained in restorative justice, and that his victim’s girlfriend took part in that training. LUCK is also working on housing, including a LUCK house for a client who served 43 years in prison.
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What moment changed how Mario Bueno viewed himself in prison?
Around 2009, after Bueno was kicked out of his housing unit for running poker tables, a friend named Dwight told him he was concerned he would become a sociopath. Dwight asked him to imagine having a daughter and choosing whether she would be raped or killed. Bueno says he realized he had taken away any opportunity for his victim to recover, and that he went from seeing himself at the top of the food chain to seeing himself at the bottom.
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