John Puls : Autism, Justice, and Understanding: Navigating the Criminal System

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are not alone in this world. Hopefully you gain more awareness, acceptance,
and a better understanding for autism around the world. Hi,
I'm Tony Mantor. Welcome to Why Not Me the World, Humanity,
Open Handcuffs, the Silent Crisis special event. Joining us today
is John Pull, a psychotherapist who is a licensed clinical
social worker and a Master certified Addiction Professional. He will
be sharing his journey of how he helps others in need.
It's a pleasure to have him here today. Thanks for coming.
On, of course, thanks for having me.
Oh, it's my pleasure if you would give us a
little insight on what you do.
Sure, sure, absolutely so. I do a few different things.
I'm a psychotherapist by trade, right so, I'm a licensed
clinical social worker and the Master served by Addiction Professional.
I really started working in the field, I would say,
in about twenty thirteen, originally as like a support staff
or what we would call like a behavioral health technician
and impatient units.
And then I went back to school.
One of my first jobs was my undergraduate was actually
at Fout County Mental Health Center, which is a crisis
stabilization unit, so work with folks with really severe and
persistent mental health issues, either psychotic disorders, having active suicidal
or homicidal thoughts and gestures. And then so I started
working with people in crisis basically and a lot of
families in crisis. From that point, I worked in a
residential dual diagnosis unit for addiction and mental health, and
I was again working with a lot of families and
people in crisis, and both times I saw a really
fractured system, both in the community mental health standpoint, which
was nonprofit, stay funded, and then even in what would
be considered a nicer kind of for profit addiction treatment
facility was still fraught with so many issues. And then
I eventually went into private practice, and so now predominantly
what I do is I work with people with more
severe mental health issues, some of which are autistic. And
then I also consult with families in terms of trying
to help them find placement and.
Things like that.
And then I have a small portion of my practice
is actually doing forensic work as well with the legal system.
Okay, let's expand a little bit on your forensic work.
When people hear the word forensic, I'm sure they have
different ideas of what it could be. It's probably quite
different from what they think it is to what it
actually is.
Could you expand on that first.
I'll start with saying that I think the assumption is
that social workers are clinical. Social workers don't do forensic work,
and it's reserved for psychiatrists and psychologists.
But I was pleased to know that's not the case
for me.
What it looks like is that I testify and do
assessments for people meeting criteria for different types of involuntary commitment,
so that could be under people being sectioned or in Florida,
it's called like a Baker app And then also we
have a unique law on Florida called the Marchman Act,
which is actually involuntary treatment for substance use disorder, which
is often co occurring a lot of mental health issues.
And then I also do what's called mitigation work.
Basically, if somebody is convicted of some type of crime,
becomes involved in the criminal justice system. I can come
in and do an assessment and testify and advocate for
reduced sentencing based on this person's mental health, their trauma history,
what they've gone through as a kid, their socioeconomic status.
The list goes on contributing factors that lead people to
wind up in the criminal justice system. So the last
part of it that I do as well is as
I'm sure many families have experienced that have loved ones
with mental illness, and is that they wind up in
impatient units subsequently receive subparer care and monitoring. So all
come in and testify to standard of care for wrongful
death cases involving mental health facilities and addiction treatment facilities.
I'm intrigued about the legal side of it. Most people
that I know who do not have autism or mental
health in their family, they just don't understand it. They
don't know how the autistic brain works. They also don't
understand how those with mental illness how their brains work either.
They don't realize that many autistic people look at things
in a different view than they do, so when they
wind up on the wrong longside of the law. It's
my understanding that many of those in the legal system
have the same challenges. They don't understand autistic people or
those with mental health. So my question is how do
you address that?
So not easy, although a lot of people don't understand it.
What I found, and not to be too cynical, but
what I've found as far as the really criminal justice
system various proceedings, is that not only do they not
understand it, they're not really making an attempt to understand it.
Part of what my role is in either mitigation work
or working with people that have been involved in the
criminal justice system is really psycho education, like explaining that
this is what this person was experiencing at the time.
I'll give you a very quick example. This was several
years ago.
The family wouldn't mind me bringing this up, but I
had a patient that was in a mental health facility
that was diagnosed with leader of schizophrenia or Schitzo effective disorder,
and they were given the wrong medication which is known
to cause agitation to treat it, and they punched a
staff member, which subsequently led to their arrest and going
to the county jail, where they received no treatment. Of course,
and through a lot of tired advocacy from both their
pardian and myself we were able to transfer to the
proper program. But I think all the criminal justice would
see is, hey, this person assaulted someone, this person in
the danger to the community, and they need to be
withheld, but when in reality they're
just not being properly treated, and there's a lack of understanding.
And certainly once you're to the point of being involved
in the criminal justice system and you're incarcerated, either in
jail or prison. Some places are doing it a little
better in terms of writing mental health care, but the
care that they receive.
Is completely inadequate, very inadequate.
So this goes deeper than just the legal system because
the first responders that are the ones that see them
out in the streets. I've had the pleasure of talking
with several different people that work between the autistic community
and the first responders. A lot of people will throw
dart to the police, putting the blame on them when
they don't realize they've only got seconds sometimes to make
a decision whether a person is going to be trying
to hurt themselves or trying to hurt someone else. How
do we change that so that the first response hopefully
is the last response and it doesn't wind up going
past that.
Absolutely.
No, that's a great point, and I think that law
enforcement officers are.
Often an easy target.
Oh well, the law works that did this, police did this,
and they are in very difficult situations and they have
seconds back. I guess what I would respond to that
As far as what we can do is look at
some of what's already being done that I believe is effective,
but it's done on a very small scale and it's
kind of fractured and it's not widely adapted. In Pulvich County,
for example, we have what we're called CIT officers, so
Crisis Intervention trained officers.
They receive specific.
Training on how to address and work with somebody that
is insuderamental, distrusts, or may have autism in order to
properly ds delaid and handle it. And you can actually
in terms of call in nine one one, you can
actually request for a CIT officer to respond. However, there's
a limited amount and depending on the situation, they may
not be able to send somebody out. We also have
something in different areas in South Florida called Service Population Advocates,
and so those are actually members of the police department.
They're paid by the local municipality police department. They have
a badge that says they're part of the police department.
But they are also licensed mental health counselors or licensed
clinical social workers, and they'll actually respond in lieu of
a law enforcement officer.
Now that's effective, but it's done on a very small scale.
What I would recommend.
Is that there's one thing for like a specialized cit
trained officer to respond. It's a whole other thing to
have a fleet of officers that can receive some training
at least and have some education.
Because I have a neighbor who has has something as.
Allays and she has a lot of stickers on her
car that basically to inform anybody that could be approaching
the car, police or whatever that there is somebody with
autism that's in the car, and they may not respond appropriately,
they may make certain gestures that seem threatening but aren't right.
Just some basic training like that I think would be
really helpful for law enforcement.
Let's take it to the next step. Now, let's say
the first responders show up. Unfortunately he gets out of control.
Now they're faced with the legal system. Depending on the situation,
that can be a very huge cost. Not only are
they faced with an overwhelming situation, now they're faced with
who do we call who'll understand that their son or
daughter is autistic? How do they go about finding someone
that knows something about autism and can help them through
this most terrifying situation that they're in.
Listen, it's really difficult.
I happen to know a few just because of the
space that I'm in, But if I have a kid
who has autism or some other type of degree mental
health issue winds up in the criminal justice system, I
may panic and just google defense attorneys and just start calling.
And then before you know it, I'm sending a five
thousand dollars retainer and I'm hoping for the best, and
I personal may not have any understanding of it, or
certain folks won't be able to do that, and then
they're left to the public defender. And when I see
often happened in that case is that the person ends
up sitting in jail for a considerably long period of
time because they're not able to be bonded out, and
it's very cumbersome and time consuming to get a mitigation
specialist to come in and appregate for reduced sentencing if
that's needed. So it's very difficult, but I think even
though there's the imminent crisis, what I always try and
tell families is to say, listen, you know, yes, your
loved one is in jail.
This is terrible, but.
Let's let's find some appropriate attorneys and legal representation. Grill
them a little bit at them. How have you worked
with clients who had autism before? Have you worked with
clients that had severe and persistent mental health issues that
contributed to it?
What is your experience? How many cases have you handled
with that?
And so often families are just like anxious, nervous and
just want to get it taken care of right away.
But what I recommend is really asking those types of
questions to make sure that you have somebody that's qualified
for it and it's not just the first person you
find it on Google.
Yeah, that's a good point.
Now my next comment, and feel free to tell me
if you think that I'm wrong in this. You're standing
in front of that judge. It's tremendously overwhelming. You only
have a certain amount of time to make a presentation
to the judge and get a lawyer, just like When
the parents first found out that their child was autistic,
it was the big unknown. Now they're standing in front
of a judge, it's an even bigger unknown. A lawyer
is definitely crucial at that point in time, So how
does that get put in place?
So I think what you're referring to is the time
frame with first appearance. When somebody has their first appearance,
it is very quick. Depending on the time of day
that you get arrested, it could be hours. If you're
arrested very late at nights or even in the middle
of the night, you could be at first appearance first
thing that morning. And in cases where there's no time,
And again I want to be careful that this is
going to be county specific and even state specific. But
what I recommend is as opposed to rushing to hype,
because again that's a lot of money, right. Families you know,
often don't have unlimited resources. I usually just recommend it
if there's not any time to find private counsel, let
them have their first appearance with the county public defender.
Worst case scenario, you can later retain private council. And
again I want to be careful because I can tell
you that's the best strategy in Palm Beach.
County, Florida. But that may not be that may not
be elsewhere. But you're right.
It's often in an impossible situation and families are panicked, they're anxious,
their brain is an overdrive, and they're trying to help
their kid.
So it's a really difficult situation.
Yeah, it is my next step. I think I want
to go to the end and then we'll work our
way back. They go through this whole process, they wind
up incarcerated. Now we have another whole different level of
people that truly do not understand the autistic world or
those with mental illness. So for a perfect example would
be an autistic person goes into sensory overload. The guards, unfortunately,
just do not understand what they're going through. How do
we help those that work in the prisons so that
something like this wouldn't happen?
Listen, we think that our local law enforcement has a
difficult time understanding it when we get to the point
of the corrections officers within.
The county jail.
Again, this would be the more cynical part of me,
But they don't understand it. They really don't have a
desired to understand they're just trying to knock out their
shift and have it be asotic as possible. And yeah,
now you have somebody who you know may have autism,
may have experi mental illness, and their behavior in the
jail because now it's exacerbated. They're increasingly stressed out, they're agitated,
and they may end up getting additional charges just from
being in jail, depending on how they act. And so
what I usually recommend to families is that again, mothers
and fathers of people with autism and other mental health
issues are the fiercest advocates I've ever seen. They've moved
mountains in terms of policy change. What I always tell
them is, advocate Paul, try to inform them about medication.
Sometimes depending to kind of jail, they'll have the mental
health units that they can be transferred to. And also
get a qualified attorney in there as soon as possible.
And after you found it appropriate one to try and
like mitigate it. And the hard part is too is
and what I've seen so many families struggle with, and
I don't know if you've heard this, is that sometimes
families are concerned about bonding their loved one out because
they're not sure they can properly manage the situation, and
they're concerned about that potentially committing even though they're not
doing it intentionally most of the time, but committing more
crimes after they're actually released. And I just had that
on the other day. So it's so hard and depending
on the situation, but basically what I usually tell them
is fiercely advocate for your loved one. Go to the
jail in person, get the right attorney there to try
and educate them on what's going on.
Yeah, that's great advice.
Now let's go to the prosecutor the other ones that
are trying to put them in jail. How do we
get across to them because many of them do not
understand autism or mental illness. They're out to get a win,
not all of them, but they just don't understand it.
If you don't get someone that has a little empathy
on that side of it, it is a very tough battle.
How do we win there? We need to get a
point across to them that is, not all people belong
in prison. How do would you address that?
And this is another circumstance where it's so state specific.
I was talking to a family member and a subsequent
social worker from California, and this person adds some seper
mental health issues and was convicted of some crimes as
a result of it.
They had a social worker that was.
Charged in managing and placing them in mental health care.
That was part of the sentence, right, And I couldn't
believe it. I'm like, I'd be like, oh, yeah, like
we do this all the time in California.
This is part of the deal.
When I was like, wow, what are what it would
be like if that was able to be replicated. So
they actually had that's a health professional advocating for the
person to receive proper treatment and care and educating the
legal system. It was a full time staff member. They
had multiple of them depending on the county. But absent
from that, that is certainly not the norm. It's not
the Norman Florida, and I'm sure it's not the Norman
in most states. You know what that looks like is
I'll back up and say most prosecutors, while of course
their punishment and jail time minded, they ultimately want the
cases off of their list, right, They want them settled,
They want the pleas done. They certainly don't want to
go to trial in any meaningful way. Again, this goes
back to sciously advocating, you know, pre your loved one,
educating them, making sure that your loved one is under
the care of some appropriate mental health professionals that can
write letters, provide reports, write something that would indicate, hey,
this was related to having autism, this was related to
a mental health disorder or a co occurring substance use disorder.
This is what we're doing to receive proper treatments and
trying to negotiate a plea from there, which of course
would involve again having a good attorney.
Yes, that's very true. We've covered a lot of great
things here. The last one I think is the judges.
There are a few out there that are trying to
make some changes, does a lot that aren't. Sometimes the prosecutor,
the defense attorney will come up with something, the judge
will say, no, that's too lenient, that's too harsh. How
do we get them to be more empathetic and understanding
of what autism and those with mental illness need so
that we don't overload our prison system Because I've heard
many times prison system is not a hospital.
The first thing I'll mention is that and again, most
counties actually do have the ability. The county will actually
pay a mitigation specialist. Okay, families typically don't have to
come out of pocket. But I think it's an underutilized
resource that a lot of people don't even know that exists.
They can try and mitigate the sentencing and explain to
the judge why this happened. I think is valuable in general,
and this is from speaking with a lot of judges
and working a lot of cases. One of the number
one protective factors that judges look at in terms of Okay,
if this person is released on probation, what is a
likelihood that they're going to re offend? As they would
use it in legal terms, one of the largest protective
factors against that is family support.
And that's it. It's family support.
Those without it are exponentially more likely to end up
back in the criminal justice system. It's not to say
that obviously, of course, it can happen even if they
have family support, but it's important that the judge knows
that family support is there, and so that can come
from writing a personalized letter to a judge is what
I often recommend that families do explaining your history, explaining
your ability and your availability and your willingness to support
your loved one. What type of ancillary care and support
you can provide, whether that be like a psychiatrist, whomever.
Really it's mating strongly.
To that judge.
Judge, I'm going to try to take care of my
loved one to the best of my ability. I have
the availability, that desire, the willingness to do it, and
while simultaneously hopefully having somebody that can educate them.
And in You're right, it's where legal sys the works. Right.
Judges have very far reaching authority, and sometimes it's the
luck of the job of who ends up taking your case.
Absolutely so, in closing, what would you like to tell
the listeners that you think is very important that they
need to hear about what you do and what we've
been talking about just in.
General and keeping along the theme of what to do
when your loved one is incarcerated or arrested, because, unfortunately,
because of the way that our healthcare system is, that's
what frequently happens. I think that a lot of families
I speak to, and I've done presentations for NAMI and
related organizations when there liberent is having a crisis. They're panicked,
and they assume law enforcements will come help them and
take them to the hospital.
What I always tell them is, you don't get unless
you have. And just because spoken to the.
Nine one one operator doesn't mean that that's necessarily going
to be translated to the responding officer.
Who I recommend is that if you can step outside,
speak to the.
Officer first, explain that the person either needs to be hospitalized.
Whatever it may be having to try and avoid an arrest.
And the other thing, and I meant to bring this
up earlier too, is even before calling law enforcement, assuming
it's not an acute crisis, check and see if your
county has a local crisis team, like a mobile crisis
team is what we call it in pal Beach County,
where they'll actually have like a social worker or therapist
come out and respond. Every county and state is specific.
So if your loved when it's having these issues, find
some local support groups, you know, local autism support groups,
caregiver support groups, NONI support groups, so that those families
and those parents can tell you specifically how they navigated it.
I always say this all the time, even though I'm
a quote unquote expert witness, the real experts, the family
members in terms of navigating the legal system with their
loved one because they'd experienced this. So get connected with
other family members who have been through the same thing
in different caregiver support groups.
Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. I mean, it's a tough
situation for those involved. Many times, people like you and
I are talking about it, we can say, well, we'll
do this, we'll do this, this is what you need
to do. When you're actually thrown into that situation, it
is truly just overwhelming, not only for the person that's
going through it, all the people that went through it
with them, the family, the lawyers, the judges, even the
first responders that were there from the very beginning. It's
just a tough situation for everyone.
It really is.
And I think that's another reason why if you do
have that support of another family member or other family
members in a local support group, that can make a
world of a difference, because when you're in the crisis,
your adrenalines pumping, you're having a hard time making decisions.
If you can have a grounding force and somebody that's
been through this before, it can help you navigate it.
It really makes a world of a difference.
Yeah, yeah, that makes perfect sense. Well, this has been great,
great conversation, great information. I'm sure we missed a few things.
We covered a lot of important topics. Thanks for coming on.
Oh yeah, absolutely, Thanks so much for having me.
It's been my pleasure.
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