Mothers seek justice for lost sons, selves

Toussaint Losier

What do you when you have a mother who has just lost a son to gun violence and also has two sons in prison?

This was one of the questions confronting community activists like Tina Chery, executive director of the Dorchester-based Louis D. Brown Peace Institute. But as last decade’s “Boston Miracle” has given way to steadily rising murder rate, the Peace Institute and other peace groups have turned to supporting community members who fall outside of conventional categories of victim and survivor.

Last Sunday night, over 100 local residents and grassroots peace activists attended the first annual fundraiser for Massachusetts’ Mothers on the Move (M’MOM), bringing mothers who have lost sons to gun violence together with those who have lost theirs to prison.

Held at Dorchester’s Russell Auditorium, the event called on family members to reach across this divide for emotional support and the strength to fundamentally change the criminal justice system.

“At some point, the only way to get something done is to support each other, victims of violence in the streets,” explained Karen Pudilo, who has a son in jail awaiting trial. “We are ready to take it to the State House.”

“These elected officials need to know that their ‘divide and conquer’ strategy will no longer work,” Pudilo continued. “We are going to hold these politicians accountable for what is going on in our communities.”

Roughly two years ago, Pudilo, Doris Bogues and Geneva Monel began meeting at the Peace Institute. Introduced to the Institute’s work through Monel’s son, Ernesto, these women soon learned that they had each lost a child through violence or incarceration. In time, they attracted other mothers in similar situations and a desire to challenge the criminal justice systems.

The failures of this system were at the center of the night’s program, entitled “Looking for Justice.” Following a performance by youth from Urban Roots, Mario Rodrigues, co-producer of the documentary “Street Soldiers,” took a moment to apologize for his own violent past.

“To all the mothers who have lost someone, I’m sorry for your loss. Not that I was directly responsible for that directly, but I contributed to it,” he said.

Like Rodrigues, keynote speaker Robert Dellelo, former president of the National Prison Rights Association, described himself as a native of Dorchester with a violent past.

“This is my neighborhood. I was a dangerous kid. I did dangerous things. I did violent things,” Dellelo said. “I don’t have any justification for my behavior.”

However, he explained, nearly four decades of institutionalization, first in reform school and then in prison, turned him into a professional thief. After serving 40 years, Dellelo has now been out of prison for three years, and he has no desire to return.

“When I started being educated in prison, my worldview enlarged,” Dellelo said. “But everything I did was not because of the system, but in spite of it.”

In 1973, the National Prison Rights Association, a prisoners’ group at Walpole State Prison, took over control of the prison from striking prison guards. According to Jamie Bissionette, one of the other speakers, this group functioned as a labor union, providing an integrated leadership that was able to lower the recidivism rate for Walpole State prisoners to 23 percent and the murder and assault rates to zero.

“I have fought for prison reform, but prison reform doesn’t work,” said Dellelo. “Reform doesn’t work because prisons don’t work. They are wrong in concept and they are rotten to the core. Education works as a rehabilitative program.”

Bissionette drew loud applause from the audience when she spoke, describing prison as a white supremacy project with the War on Drugs increasing the proportion of African Americans and other people of color at every level of the system, from arrest to incarceration.

After Dellelo’s speech, many of the mothers in attendance raised questions about why the gun industry provides such easy access to handguns and how citizens can take back control of the courts and the prisons to ensure rehabilitation. One woman also raised the issue of several mothers facing eviction from public housing because their children’s incarceration.