Leigh Anne McKingsley: Creating Pathways to Justice for the Developmentally Disabled

Welcome to Why Not Me the World?
Podcast hosted by Tony Mantor, broadcasting from Music City, USA, Nashville, Tennessee.
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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 of a Handcuff special event. We are delighted to
have Liamne mckingsley join us today. She serves as Senior
Director of Disability and Justice Initiatives for the ARC and
oversees the ARCS National Center on Criminal Justice and Disability,
a clearinghouse for research, information, evaluation, training, and technical assistance
for criminal justice and disability professionals. She possesses a tremendous
amount of knowledge and we are grateful to have her
join us today. Thanks for coming on.
Thank you so much, Tony.
Oh it's my pleasure. So if you would expand on
how you got into what you do.
My background was more mental health as well.
As you were talking, and I got interested as I
was working through my Masters of Social Work, and then
I got a dual masters in public administration. We had
our own jail over crowding issue here in Texas that
I was interested in addressing that also intersected with mental
health issues, and I was working with Senator Moncrief's office
here in Fort Worth Tech, and all of these things
converged into what can we do to keep people out
of the criminal justice system that have mental health disabilities.
But then long and behold, there was an ad in
the paper from the ARC of the United States that
I had never even heard of before, and they were
looking for someone to oversee a project because of the
title to the Americans with Disabilities Act, where we could
educate law enforcement attorneys people with disabilities about their accommodations
under the title too. So that's when I got hired
at the ART and that is when I first started
seeing all of the injustices that people with IDD, including autism.
When I say IDD, I'm talking about a much broader
field looking at autism, but also people with fetal alcohol
spectrum disorder, people with all kinds of developmental disabilities who
may not have a specific term attached to it, they
still have a developmental disability and how often they remain
invisible in our criminal justice system, and how little there
is in terms of research and support when someone gets
involved in the system. So it was eleven years ago
that we started the National Center on Criminal Justice and Disability.
Was a kind of a lifelong dream to create a
center that could really house this kind of information and
provide resources. And we also have a National Information Referral
line so that people with disabilities, parents, attorneys, whoever can
call to get information and to actually get advocacy in
these different types of cases.
So can you tell us what the ARC actually stands for?
So the ARC does not really stand for anything.
It did back in the day.
Originally, the arcs started out because of parents who were
wanting to advocate for their children to be able to
go to school, have an education, not.
Live in institutions.
And they said no to the doctors that said your
child would be better off in an institution, and they
kept their children with them and then started fighting for education.
And that's how the ARC started, and it was the
Association for Retarded Citizens at that time, but due to
the stigma obviously of that word, now the ARC goes
by the ARC and Our focus is really to have
inclusion of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, whether that's
in schools or everyday life, having access to the same
things everybody else does and in a way that is
safe and promotes their health and well being. So we
do that through a number of different ways. We have policy,
we work with our chapters throughout the country. We have
over six hundred chapters throughout the country, and we're probably
one of the best keep secrets when it comes to
this type of advocacy and supports for people with IDD.
But we have been doing this work for over seventy years,
really focused on people with IDD, needing supports, whether it's
policy at the local, state, and national level, working on
policies that affect people with IDD, but also supporting our
chapters who are boots on the ground providing that advocacy
one on one for families and for people with IDD.
You said this started eleven years ago, correct, And where
is the home base located?
It was eleven years ago that we started the National
Center on Criminal Justice and Disability, which is housed within
the ARC, and our national offices are in Washington, d C.
And then I work from a home office in Texas.
How long have you been with them?
In February, it will be twenty nine years.
In the twenty nine years since you very first started.
What are some of the changes that you've seen that's
taken place that you can say, this is really good.
It needs to get a little bit better, but what
we've done is working.
And that's a great question.
I'll answer that carefully because there have been some progress
made into in terms of just society having more of
an understanding of developmental disabilities.
A lot of that because of autism. Now you can
turn on Netflix and see shows on autism.
I mean, there's just more of a general awareness around
disability in some ways, but we still lack in really
people understanding how that affects those in criminal justice situations,
those who may be victims of crime. So in certain areas,
I think people are still invisible and that's why those
accommodations are so important. And where we have also lacked
is in research, and we know we have to have
some research to drive change. Recently, I was involved in
a meeting in DC that put out a report funded
by the National Institutes of Justice to start looking at
a research agenda for people with IDD involved in the
criminal justice system. So there are some ways that there
is may be some more funding to look at these issues.
That's because of funding through the Department of Justices Bureau
of Justice Assistance. That's what gave us the initial seed
money to start the National Center on Criminal Justice and Disability.
So there is some funding out there to do that.
But there are still people with idd who have been
killed within criminal justice system, whether it's through an encounter
gone wrong with law enforcement or it's in our prisons
in jails, and then there's victims who are not getting
their day in court. There's still a lot to be done,
but there have been small incremental changes that have been positive.
When you start on a new chapter of your initiatives,
especially with legislation, what do you do to try to
get more legislation involved so that everyone from the judges
down can get a better understanding of what's needed to
give a better outcome for everyone involved.
And that's a great question.
Let me back up and talk about when we first
got the grant to start the National Center. One of
the things we wanted to do is create training, and
that is not the end all, be all, but that's
part of the solution and this our training is called
Pathways to Justice, which is a one day training for
law enforcement, for attorneys and the legal professionals and victim
service providers that brings the community together around this issue.
So we're not pointing fingers and saying they're not doing
their job or they don't help, but we're saying we.
All have a role to play in this.
Part of that training, we help our site set ups
called Disability Response teams that are essentially planning teams that
look at the systemic issues going on in the community
and try to address the underlying issues that are creating
the problems that they're seeing as officers or as people
with disabilities.
And so that.
Speaks to if you're wanting to change a judge's attitude
or understanding, or the attorneys or whoever, you've got to
start with a key group of people that are working
on this together. Because once they get at the table
and start talking about these cases, they realize they may
have never even had a chance to do this, and
we've seen that in our trainings where they just don't
have time, there's not the reason to get together and
have these conversations. And so we're trying to create that opportunity.
A lot of times there's expertise in those communities that
just are untapped and they haven't been able to think
through some of these solutions together. But what's always key
about these teams is that you have someone with an idd,
someone with lived experience who brings that very important understanding
to all of these discussions.
Without that, you're missing the boat.
And sometimes that's not provided or maybe not in a
way where accommodations are there to help people meaningfully get involved.
So you want to make sure that we have people
with disabilities involved at the very beginning of all of
these discussions.
I've been told with legislators, you need to sit down
with them, throw away the emotions, give them facts and
figures on how they can save taxpayer money by doing
something or changing some of the things that are being done. Now.
I think on the judges it has to be a
little bit more emotional. Still, have the facts. Get them
to look at the person that's in front of them,
hopefully have a little empathy towards them. Use the knowledge
of what you did with the legislators and the emotions
to get across of them that they might be able
to help that person have a better life by doing
something a little bit different than they would have done.
I really think it's a too pronged approach. I think
your best bet is to have both.
You need the.
Story because honestly, what makes what does motivate us now
It numbers are important and understanding that the bottom line
on how not supporting people is going to increase people
going into the system, which ups the cost of your
community or your state. But you also really need to
understand the stories and the why behind why it's so
important that we address it. And I think when you
bring someone's story it creates that sense of urgency too,
to understand this could have been your set, your daughter. Frankly,
we look for judges or attorneys who have that personal connection.
If you can find someone with a family connection or
has lived it themselves, all the better to have them
tell it from their perspective of why this issue is
so important. So when we go in and we create
these disability response teams with our chapters, we ask who's
already involved. What kind of training are police getting, are
your local prosecutors getting? Is there someone there who has
a center daughter with an intellectual developmental disability or a
family member, and let's start with where you are at
and what you have, and we'll just come in and
support that and provide a template of how you can
grow that in your community.
I've heard that one in seven people around the world
either know someone has someone this autistic in their family.
I've heard one in eight people around the world has
a mental disability of some sort. Those numbers are pretty staggering.
With those kind of numbers, the possibility of you coming
in contact with someone that has one or both of
those scenarios. Now, those people can be law enforcement DA's
eighty judges, it can cover the whole judicial system and beyond.
Because of that, what seems to be the issue to
why we can't get them more involved. Even though it
is getting better in some areas.
I think still there's a lot of disability that remains
invisible in our society, and especially mental health stigma, the
stigma of being able to.
Talk about your mental health.
We know that's been true in policing for forever until
more recently. Now there's a lot more talk about mental
wellness and policing, but there still is a stigma of
being able to openly talk about this. Imagine being in
the criminal justice system and stigmas that you may face.
Imagine having autism or another type of a developmental disability
and knowing that if you say something in jail or
in prison, what that could do or what that could mean.
So I think there's still a lot of this not
being talked about or fear of talking openly about disability,
which can impact the ability to know the true numbers.
But we still don't have a lot of good screening
tools either to get to exactly how many people are
affected by different types of disabilities. We do know from
the Bureau of Justice Statistics there are there's data specific
to the number of people in prisons and jails. Two
intend prisoners and three inten GEL in mates reported having
some type of a cognitive disability. That's a pretty broad
term that they use there. It includes people with Down syndrome, autism, dementia,
learning disabilities, intellectual disability, and traumatic brain injury. It would
probably help us to know a little bit more specifically
what types of disabilities that people have in the criminal
justice system. But that's one example of how we're trying
to get to the data so that we can know
what kind of accommodations are needed. And the more we
understand about the type of disability, the better we can
pinpoint the accommodations and supports.
Yeah, that makes sense.
When you meet with a person for the first time,
it can be a judge, a DA anyone within the
legal system, you tell them what you're trying to do.
What's your approach? You don't know where they stand. You
might know a little bit on where you think they stand.
Sometimes your perception is not always correct. What's your approach
in talking with them? Discussions? Trying to show them that
they hopefully will look at it in a different view
than what they might have.
I think we often start with thinking through why they
sign up for this job, and this is when you
understand disability better, you do your job better.
If you're really.
Out to prosecute a case, then you need to understand
within that case that this person has a disability. You've
got to understand the facets of that. Who do you
reach out to understand it? Who's there to support that help,
whether it's someone prosecuting a case, someone defending a case,
a law enforcement officer wanting to do their job well.
The more you understand how to approach someone, the safer
everyone can be so we try to really posit it
as you want to do the job the best way
you can. We want to help you do your job.
So we just want to share about why it's important
to understand about disability so that everyone can walk away,
so that everyone deserves justice. So why are people with
disabilities any different? But the truth is they aren't getting it.
And this is why we start there and give very
basic examples of how injustices are happening.
And a lot of times people just don't know. They
don't know, it remains invisible.
I don't even want to think about the number of
victims with IDD all over our country, all over our world,
where it doesn't even come to the light of day.
Where do you think that trauma goes. There's so much
trauma out there that's just simply unaddressed.
Yeah, I have spoken with several different people, both on
the mental health side and the autistic side that have
tremendous success stories. How do we get those success stories
to these people that might be questioning it because of
the stigma. And there's nothing better than showing somebody a
situation to where it had the worst case scenario with
no hope, but yet it succeeded, and this person went
on to do really good things, not only in just
a local area, but statewide in some cases, in some
cases even beyond that. How do we get through them that, hey,
don't look at just the negative, look at all the possibilities.
Absolutely, I love that you said that, because a lot
of the work that we've been doing through the Center
has focused on some of the harder issues, like sexual
violence of people with IDD and it's so hard to
bring that message because people feel like, what can we do,
especially if someone doesn't you've spoken language to communicate, how
do they even report? And we have a project right
now funding through the Office of Violence against Women that
we're working on that vary issues, So we always bring
that there is hope. The problem is when people have
to be silent, and when we don't give people the
tools to even advocate for themselves. That's been the problem.
The bigger problem is that nobody has the tools or
ability to talk about the injustices that they're facing. But
I work with a couple of amazing people, one that
I've worked with many years who is a survivor's sexual violence,
and one that I've worked with since the Center started
where they have used their platform and their story to
really help change the narrative and the understanding.
Around these issues.
Absolutely, change can happen, but we've got to get more
focus on these issues so that there's more support and
more acceptance to want to talk about it. I think
the stories are there waiting to be had, but there's
still a lot more in terms of figuring out how
to bring I think more collaboration to the table between
the disability world, the victim advocacy, and policing. That's what
nccjd Our National Center was set up to do, is
to create that collaborative space so that we can learn
how to work together to raise this issue. But having
people with disabilities who've lived it leading that effort is
what we're really seeking to do and bringing their story forward.
I think people who.
Have lived it and bring their story are the biggest
hope that we have because we all can feel and
see and taste and experience through their stories that something
can change. But just relaying it ourselves is not near
as strong as hearing it from them directly.
How do we get more people like that to get
in front of people to tell them their stories.
We ourselves have experienced at the center difficulty in finding
these stories. We have, as I said, our National Information
Referral line that we will look for stories through there.
But I think there's a double stigma with disability as
well as say being a victim of a crime or
being a suspect of a crime. It's almost like you've
got dual stigmas going on, and people, I think don't
always feel comfortable talking about the reality of their lives,
what they have faced or what they are facing.
And sometimes even because they're in the system.
Right now, they can't talk about it. So the nature
of what we're trying to raise awareness about makes it
that much more difficult to bring these stories out. And
often it's people that have already had a certain number
of years of healing or families that now can talk
about it. I think that's one of the reasons why
it makes it challenging.
Yes, I can understand that for sure, there is a
certain perception of it and people don't get it. When
I first started my podcast, I was one of them.
The more people that I spoke with, the more people
I had on my podcast, the more I started understanding
what their lives are like every day. One of the
big things that I did find is that everything I
thought was completely wrong.
The same thing can be.
Said about mental health because there's a lot of things
there that people just do not understand either. So the
people that lived it every day are the ones that
taught me what I know today. Sad part is bad
things happen. We don't understand it, and those that do
not understand it make judgments of toss them and jail
throw away the key, when that's not the answer at all.
What they should know is help them into a facility
that can work with them every single day to give
them a chance of having.
A better life.
Absolutely, that's called criminalizing people with disabilities, whether it's a
mental health disability or it's an intellectual developmental disability like autism.
That has been a huge issue in our country because
there is simply nowhere else for people to go, and
the default has been our criminal justice system, and because
people may show different behaviors that can be seen from
law enforcement as you're not listening or not respecting, it
can be behaviors that are concerning to people who don't
understand disability.
And I often like to explain.
It this way because we often talk about it as
crisis in our country, looking at when someone's in crisis
and what do we do and crisis.
Intervention, and so I often explain it when we.
Do trainings that the crisis is in the eye of
the beholder, because what looks like a crisis to a
law enforcement officer may be an everyday thing for someone
with autism, and for example, someone who's stemming, that could
come off as ooh, that's concerning behavior, but that's actually
how they're able to calm themselves down. So it's these
misunderstandings miscommunications going on that it's really on us as
a society to understand better so that we can be
more inclusive.
But that means we have to be.
Educating and being willing to hear each other out when
it comes to building more inclusive systems, including within our
criminal justice system, to really understand disabilities, be able to
provide those accommodations and long term supports so that people
have other options than just calling nine to one one,
for example.
That was the whole purpose of nine eight eight.
And I don't know if I mentioned that when it
comes to mental health, people with intellectual developmental disabilities are
more likely to have a mental health disability somewhere between
thirty to forty percent more likely. So there's this organization
called the National Association of Dual Diagnosis or NAD, where
that is their whole focus is that specific population. And
I've been working with them off and on for many
years around criminal justice issues too, So that is important
to keep in mind that there's that intersection of disability.
Absolutely.
The one thing that I've learned doing this podcast from
so many different people they found out later in life
there was autistic, but before that they were either ADHD, bipolar,
or whatever it might be. And then many times they
were autistic and found out later on they had one
or two different diagnoses that would overlap each other.
Absolutely.
And also an officer or an attorney, whoever's working with
the individual, they don't have to know exactly the disability.
They can just ask what do you need help with?
What accommodation do you need? We often say it's not
about you trying to figure out the disability as much
as it is having that willingness to accommodate and.
Just knowing that there are people.
With different disabilities and that's what could be going on here.
Did I think about that? Did we stop and slow
the situation down and think this through, or think about
does that victim need an extra support?
What is it they need?
So a lot of this can be addressed with what
we do know today. So that's just an important message.
Yeah, absolutely.
In closing, what would you like to leave us with
that you think is very important for them to hear
and understand the one I.
Just ended on, which is to keep an open mind
around people with autism and other developmental disabilities who are
at risk of getting involved in the criminal justice system
or already in the system, to think much more deeply
and broadly about why they are there, what's going on,
and how you can create change for that person. We
know that change can happen both on an individual level
just by helping to identify supports for someone, but also
so at this systemic level, so we can do better
in our systems to collaborate together to provide those kinds
of supports and people really can make a huge difference
in one person's life. I've seen it many times through
the National Center. And you may think you're not doing
much of anything, but just making that one phone call
or doing that one outreach to another agency could really
mean a huge difference in the life of someone, so
please do all you can and feel free to contact
the ARC and our national center to be part of
that solution. We are always looking for help and others
to come alongside and help.
Us do the work.
Yeah. Great, well, I really appreciate you coming on. It's
been great.
Thank you so much, Tony, appreciate the opportunity absolutely.
The pleasure has been online.
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