Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism

Welcome to Why Not Me the World? Podcast hosted by
Tony Mantor, Broadcasting from Music City USA, Nashville, Tennessee. Join
us as our guests tell us their stories. Some will
make you laugh, some will make you cry. Real life
people who will inspire and show that you 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 over Handcuffs the Silent Crisis special event. Joining us today,
It's Brian Kelmar, who will share his inspiring journey with
his autistic son and the legal system which ultimately led
him to establish D three Decriminalize developmental disabilities. It's an
honor to have him on the show. We're grateful to
have the opportunity to amplify his story, sparking hope and
driving meaningful change. Thanks for coming on. Sure if you
would tell me a little bit about your organization.
So we've created organizations called Decriminalized Developmental Disabilities. We work
with families whose children or family members have gotten caught
out in the criminal justice system who have either intellectual
developmental disabilities or other developmental disabilities such as autism. We
work with them either from the start of the process
when they enter criminal justice system or as they're going
through that. We try to give them resources, We give
them history of what's worked well, what hasn't worked well,
and just emotional support as well. We have what's called
a wine and Wine once a month where you can
do a little bit of both, but not too much
of either, so that you could share with other families
what you're going through and they share experiences and learn
from each other and support each other. We also work
to change, and that is the big part of our
organization is trying to create change.
What type of changes are you working towards?
Change the laws, change perceptions, change the education so people
understand autism and developmental disabilities, and how these family members
get caught up in these situations because of their autism,
not because they're criminal deviants. In fact, it's called counterfeit deviants.
It appears to be deviant behavior, but it's not. It's
a situation that they did not understand, and once they
do understand that, they go, oh, my gosh, I didn't.
Know I was doing this. That was wrong.
There's a lot of psychological and medical history and resource
to back a lot of this that we were talking about.
How how long have you been doing this?
We started the organization back in twenty sixteen. We were
originally called Legal Reform for Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, and
we decided to rename it because what it really is
is we're trying to decriminalize developmental disabilities.
And you see these stories all the time, you know, very.
Tragic situations where people are shy by law enforcement or
taking kids taken advantage of, or kids getting kicked out
of school, and it has to do with you know,
sensory overload and how they process things and then it
gets them in trouble.
Yes, that's so true. This is a great thing you're doing.
What led you to get involved like you are?
About thirteen fourteen years ago, my own son was a
teenager Bennicott caught up in a criminal justice process.
It was devastating and it has been.
Devastating to not only to him, to us, to our
entire family. And one of the things that just shocked
me and really got me just saying how can this happen?
Is during the sentencing, the judge said, clearly this person
has a developmental disability and didn't understand the situation. But unfortunately,
the Commonwealth of Virginia does not recognize developmental disabilities. That
just stuck with me for years, as like they recognize
mental illness, they recognize alcoholism, they recognized drug abuse, they
recognize PTSD, But how can you not recognize in the
criminal justice system something that you're born with a developmental disability.
The part of their brain works differently from a neurotypical brain,
and how can that not be taken into account? So
I started telling my story about my son, and the
way we originally started was we were asked to speak
at a webinar with the ARC of the US on
criminal justice. Typically on the webinars, and this was back
about fourteen years ago. Webinars and zooms weren't that big,
and they had about one hundred hundred and fifty people
across the country signed up typically for a webinar. Brought
up our situation in our topic of autism and the
criminal justice system, and over a thousand people signed up.
It went over the capacity of what the women are
could handle and there were even more waiting to get in.
So we spoke with the ARC afterwards and we said
sell myself and another lady, Carol Neskis and I we said, well,
we're not the only ones in the world that are
facing this.
We thought it was us.
We thought it was an isolated situation, and so why
don't we form a subgroup of the arc of the US.
And we did.
Another person joined us, Jude Harrison, and just by word
of mouth, people go, oh yeah, let me tell you,
and everyone had a story. Oh my gosh, this is
a lot bigger than we ever could have imagined. So
we turned it into a nonprofit and from then on
I usually get two to three people from all over
the country that call me about their son or their
daughter or their family member.
It's even probably bigger than that.
A lot of parents don't want to talk about it
because they are embarrassed or shamed. I talked to parents
and they don't even tell their own family members that
their son or daughters caught up in the criminal justice
system like this.
Unfortunately, it's getting more and more common.
When you started, what were some of the first things
that you did. When you look at it, you have
a big mountain to climb. Many times, the only thing
that you can do is inge by inch foot by
foot with hopes of climbing the mountain all the way
to the top.
Well, that's that's really how I look at it. That's
exactly how we look at it.
Is the things that we're changing, as we say, we're
chipping away at the mountain. So one of the things
that I said, what's our first line of defense, Well,
we have to educate people with developmental disabilities about situations
or what's correct behavior and what is incorrect. And once
they learn, since they're very rule bound, because it helps
them understand the world around them because the world is
overwhelming and confusing. Sometimes once they learn the rules, they
stick to the rules because they can revert back to
that and go, Okay, I'm supposed to do one, I'm
supposed to do, who I'm supposed to do three? That
they will never it tears them apart to deviate from that.
So one of the things we said, well, we have
to educate. So I had talked to a lot of people.
I met with the local ARC and they introduced me
to my state legislator and she was very she still
is a very short lady.
She was a doctorate. She understood it.
So what we did is we introduced a legislation that
year that said, if you have an IP for a
person with developmental disabilities, you must include as part of
that education starting in kindergarten and every single grade all
the way through twelfth grade, appropriate behavior education, whether that's
sexual health or whether that's understanding the things that they
go through as they develop, you know, as a teenager,
what are appropriate behaviors? For example, we've had autism kids.
They watch football. What is the football players? After they
do a good job, they pat the guy on the back,
on the backside, you know, or on the back. So
they think, well, if I do that, I'm telling this
person grade well you do that to a woman, right,
that's an assault, or even to a person another person assault.
But they see this and this is a.
Very popular sport and they're watching this and they go, oh,
look that's how he's congratulating, so I should do the
same thing. And they mimic that situation. So something is
benign as that to them. Not learning about sexual behavior
And where does anybody find any information? You google it,
and that can take you down a rabbit hole out
to some bad places. And they don't understand that because
no one has ever explained it. Most of us learn
about these appropriate behaviors from our friends in the locker
room as we were growing up in junior high and
high school. The autistic individuals, a lot of them don't
have families, I don't have friends like that.
They're the odd one, they're the.
Weird one out, so nobody talks to them and nobody
takes them one. So that's how we've kind of evolved
and developed. That was their first bill we introduced here
in Virginia, and then the next one was what about
if they do get up in the criminal justice system,
is there anything to get them out of it? One
of the things we said, if it gets to the
sentencing phase, there should be consideration for diversion, and that
one's been a very successful one. So if they had
pleaded guilty or did a plea bargain, the judge could say,
all right, time out, what's going on here. This is
a developmental disabilities. Let's get this person education and diversion,
and then we'll come back and look at it and
see if this is devan behavior or if they've learned
and we can move on.
And we've been very successful with that one.
That's really good to hear how far apart were these
cases that you did this for.
This was all in the same year.
We had one that's bill that said, well, because we
had one of the family unimers that had somebody who
didn't make it through that process and ended up in prison,
and we said, the prisons do not screen for developmental disabilities.
They screened for mental health. And her son was in jail.
And he had autism, and she had a medical record
about two inches thick saying he's autistic. I have all
the documentation, and they went, no, no, he's psychotic, he's bipolar,
and they were giving him all these medicines to treat that,
and it was like, no, he's autistic, and they were
compounding the situation. So we passed a law that said
the prison system here in Virginia had to take into
account and have a way to screen for developmental disabilities.
And they have since that time.
In twenty twenty, we've introduced legislation every single year to
chip away to try and get developmental disabilities and autism
taken into account in the criminal justice system.
Yeah, that's really good work. I've been doing this podcast
for about a year and a half. I didn't even
realize the situation was a situation. I spoke with a
judge he was just seventeen years old. He told me
the same story that you just said. He went into
a prison situation where an autistic person was given medications
it actually made the situation worse. Yeah, that was over
forty years ago, maybe even fifty. So how have we
not figured out out how we can help these people
that end up in the prison system so they can
be treated, hopefully to have a much better outcome for
everyone involved.
Well, that's one of the things that we're trying to
do with our organization is awareness. We are trying to
educate the public, like we are here on the podcast.
I speak quite a bit TV and radio and articles,
and all of our co founders do the same. So
it's educating people, it's educating law enforcement. We just passed
the law here in Virginia last year through the Autism
Society that says law enforcement must go through autism specific
training and not only once in the academy, but ongoing
autism training because they get into these situations when they're
first responders. So it's educating law enforcement, educating police, and
then educating the judicial process. So educating the judges, the prosecutors,
and defense attorney. So part of one of the laws
that we introduce said that if you are a public
defender and you are going to defend somebody with autism,
you must have within the past two years a minimum
of four hours training on autism, because how can you
defend somebody if you don't really understand anything about the
medical condition?
Absolutely, I think that's very important. Understanding is the key
for everything. This podcast is about understanding and trying to
get the stories like you're telling now to the people
that need to hear it. You've accomplished a lot in Virginia.
What's the next step to get it to a national
basis for everyone? This is happening across the country and
of course around the world. How do we get this
from a local scenario to a national scenario.
I started it here in Virginia because obviously I live here,
and I live twenty minutes from our capital, so I
was able to go down there, and I'm able to
go down there regularly and talk to legislators. We have grown,
As I mentioned, our families are from every I have
them from all fifty states, and I have some people
from Canada, and I've even had people from UK. So
it's educating our families to be the advocates and to
push these issues. So we have families that are speaking
to their senators and their delegates. We have reached out
to the US Congress. I've spoken to over sixty a
House of representatives and senators about the issue. As we
all know, getting things done in Washington has been very
challenging and I spent a lot of effort on that,
and I haven't seen a whole lot move in the
past six years since I've been trying that, And we
just did another round about six months ago of redoing
this again. So what I decided was the best way
to get change is locally. I started here with Virginia,
and I am trying to use Virginia as a model
for legislation. And then I reach out to parents and
the parents say, you know, what can I do?
What can I do?
And I walked them through the process, and I said,
call your local representative. I'll help you through the process.
I'll tell you what to say. I'll even be on
the phone call. A lot of times, I'm on zoom calls.
I just was on a zoom call with the Maryland
Legislator and the Autism Society of Maryland, and we were
working on legislation similar here. So what we want to
do is try and roll the legislation that we know
that has been working here and roll this out state
by state and sort of like you know, the medical
care that we have now, I think, get started with
Massachusetts and it started rolling out state by state, and
the US government said, well, well, geez, all these states
are doing that, why don't we roll this out nationally?
So it's kind of the same theory of what we're
trying to do is roll this out state by state
and then push at the same time at the national level,
say this is a big deal, and we're seeing this
as a really growing issue because what has happened in
our systems is we have some of the supports in
place for autistic children in schools. Some are great, some
are not so great, but at least there's some there.
When they graduate from high school, they basically, as we
always say as parents, they fall off the cliff. All
of those supports and interactions and things that are trying
to help them are no longer there.
And this is where a lot of our kids get
in trouble.
I mean, they're living in the parents' basement, or they
don't have any friends except people on the computer friends.
So we're trying to educate families how to get appropriate training, education,
and have laws that help support if they do get
in this trouble.
When you have a family, they just find out this
son or daughter might have legal issues, It's kind of
like when they first found that their son or daughter
was autistic. It's the big unknown, and it's very very scary.
What do you do to help take away that fear
they might have? After all, it is the legal system.
It can be very scary. What's the first steps that
you do to guide them through that process so they
can better understand what needs to happen. After all, it
is a legal system. A lot of stress accompanies it,
and it can be very very intimidating to them.
I mean, that's a really great point. If you've never
been into the criminal justice system, you have no idea
what it is and what you see on TV and
what is reality it is. They're not even close. It's
not even close. Most of us have never seen it
inside of a courtroom other than for like a speeding
ticket or a parking ticket right, and you go before
the judge and say yes and pay your fine, goodbye.
But once you get in the criminal legal system, it
is a nightmare. They tell parents. It starts to snowball
and can get worse and worse as you go. So
first of all, I learned about their case. I listen
to them, which is important because they have somebody to
talk to, and they can talk to me, for one
of our other co founders, because we've lived it and
we know what they're going through. That's very key for
a lot of parents, is you know what I'm talking about.
In fact, a lot of times I'll talk to parents,
they'll start telling me, I goop right there. I can
complete all of your sentences because I know it and
I've heard it over you know, thousands of time it's
the same situation.
And then what I do is I help them where
they are on.
The process on getting resources, and I actually have a list. Okay,
first thing you're going to do is this second thing
you're going to do. Is this third thing you're going
to do is this here's what's going to happen. You're
going to go through this part and this is where
certain things will happen in and here's where you go
through this part. I talk them through so that they
understand they have my cell number. They call me as
I sometimes I say, I talk to some of the
parents off the ledge, and it's good that you can
have somebody that you can reach out and talk to
that has been through through it, because it is such
an unknown going forward, and that is even more petrifying
than as you do know.
You brought up. Many parents do not tell their family
that their son or daughters in the legal system. They
may be very embarrassed by it. I could be wrong.
It might go well past just being embarrassed. Their son
or daughter is caught up in the legal system. Now
the prosecutor is trying to paint a picture that their
son or daughter is this horrible person, which they know
is not true. That can be so overwhelming and mentally
challenging for the parent as well. How do you help
them get past the emotional part of their trial in
order to get them to be more objective about what's
going on. That's a very hard thing to do well.
I mean, that's another great point is the prosecutor is
in for a win, and a lot of people think
the criminal justice is fair and just, and it's not.
I mean, that's just a reality. I'm not being making
a statement. It's just an observation of reality. It's all
about the win, and it's all about the prosecutor winning
at any cost. And we've heard stories of where things
have been manipulated or things have not been true. A
lot of times the prosecutors, I tell people, it's like
a card game. They have all the cards and they
will keep throwing aces at you, and they'll come up
with fifty two million charges and some of those charges
may not even be relevant. But you are so scared
that you're going to have to be put away for life
that you're willing to make a plea bargain and you
think this is the best thing that you can do.
And sometimes it is, but a lot of times it's not.
People don't understand what the consequences are, that what happens
if you do get a felony on your record. So
we talk to people and they talk to us, and
we explain that situation and we try and give them
resources to level the playing field. So we have lots
of resources that specifically explains I mean, there's a lot
of atypical things that happen that we can say because
of this in their autism, you will see this. Because
of this in their autism, you will see this. So
one of the things is in autistics, not everyone, but
one of a common characteristics is they can be easily manipulated.
We've had a case where a person was arrested for
robbery and he wanted to fit in with his with
these people that were somewhat being nice, and they said, look,
just stay right here with the car. We're going to
be back in fifteen minutes.
Just stay here, and then we need you.
To give us a ride because we don't have our car.
And the person doesn't it doesn't realize he's driving the
getaway car or bank robbery, right, and he gets thrown
in with the rest of them. He was just trying
to fit in. And that's one situation, and we've had
some even more extreme where we've had some cases. We
just had a psychologist speak to us about where these
terrorist groups will recruit people with autism on the internet.
They're not doing a face to face they're talking through
you know, chat rooms or whatever, and these people are
being nice to them. They may even give them a
T shirt and a hat, so they feel like they
belong and they're building them up and saying, oh, you're
doing such great work for us, and you know you
need to go do this, and they go, okay, because
if you don't, you're really going to hurt my feelings,
and you know you're supporting all these people by doing it.
And they're easily manipulated into doing that. Once they realize like,
oh no, this is really bad, this is what's going on,
they went, oh my, I didn't understand that. I thought
they were just being nice to me.
So there's a huge difference between a civil, local and
federal court system. Yes, it can be very very intense
in federal court.
Yes.
Add to that, it can be very very costly. How
does the average person that just barely getting by, struggling
to take care of their kids, how do these people
get to a place where they can be on a
level playing field with the prosecutor with all the things
that can add to the financial burden of defending.
Their child, even for people who can afford it.
When I say can afford it, most of us like
mortgaging our getting out a second mortgage in our house,
or selling our cars or giving up all of our savings.
You have to get psychological evaluations. And what we were
able to do is we're able to give the research
that has been done and we educate them. So we
have research and we have papers from various organizations that says.
Give this to the prosecutor, reach out to.
And we have a couple of lawyers that will help
public defenders understand that. And one of the things we
have with that is a lot of times public defenders
don't have time to look at that. And I tell
parents the most important thing, even if you've got the
most expensive, best lawyer in the world, nobody knows your
son better than you do. You need to educate yourself.
And here's the information that you need to educate yourself with.
And I give that to them. I have those resources,
and I said, you need to be as fluent as
this as I am and relate it those specific parts
that apply to your son so that you explain it.
We even have them do a chronological list of what
has happened in their life. Okay, remember when they were
six and they were bullied, or remember when they were
eighteen and somebody said, hey, give me, give me some
cash and you'll be my friend. All those nuances. Write
those down to show people this didn't happen yesterday.
This has been going on from childhood.
When you look at my son's case, and even was
brought up in the case is the doctor said, oh no,
this happened.
You could see this.
The month prior to my wife giving pregnancy, there was
shown that there was something wrong that happened during the pregnancy.
And nobody knows whether it's pregnancy or whether it's hereditary.
There's still a lot of research, but no, but all
of these things and you show here's a pattern of
what has been going on throughout their life, and we've
tried to get resources and this is similar to that pattern,
so that you can show this is part of their
developmental disabilities. This is part of their brain that developed
differently than a rotypical and does not understand that.
This has been a great conversation, a lot of really
really good information. What do you feel this important in
closing to tell our listeners on what they need to
know on what you do.
First of all, I want to say we're out there
to help you. We are just a bunch of parents
that have been through this and we do not want
this to happen to others, So reach out to us
decriminalize developmental disabilities and look that up just like that
on Google or you can just look up capital d
thr EE dot org.
That's number one.
If you get those situations, you need to get in
front of it as soon as you think it may
even happen. The other thing is you need to educate
your children about these situations. If they get themselves in situations,
do not ever talk to law enforcement. Without a lawyer,
that gets you in trouble. And number three is that
you can change our systems. It takes one person. And
I tell families, everybody goes somebody has to do something
about this. Somebody has that. Somebody is you and you
one person. Yes, you can make a change, and we
will help you with that if you're interested in doing that.
But it starts with the families, and it starts with
us making that change for people to understand there are
these people with developmental disabilities that are different from you
and I and helping them understand the society around them
is so critical so they too can thrive and not
end up in the criminal justice system and their lives
destroyed forever.
Yeah, that's really great advice. I really appreciate you coming on,
great conversation, great information.
Thank you, Tony, appreciate it.
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