Rita Williams
Appearances
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
A big part of it, honestly, was just getting really creative and good on social media and unique blogging and just coming at it from a digital angle because there's only so far the letter writing campaigns will get you. And social media was where I think I had the most impact just because it's so wide open. It's that digital sphere. Yeah.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
I mean, there's definitely some things I've said it a little shorter and maybe a little meaner than I should have. And that got some attention. But you definitely will draw more flies with honey than vinegar, I will say. It's a lesson learned.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
That is true.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
Yeah. And honestly, what I had to do most recently with this other case is just keep blasting of, bam, here's this case where something went wrong. Bam, here's this case where something went wrong. And you have to keep putting those posts out.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
Otherwise, they're going to feel like they can get complacent and just get away with it. And so I've been really lucky that because I've been staying on top of things, I've actually been able to help quite a few people not just get out of potentially bad situations with plea bargains in this particular county that I was dealing with.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
But also they've had some better outcomes in their cases because one of the most creative things I did was I said, give me your case file. I ran through the entire thing. I peeled it apart back to back. I basically, because I have criminal justice training, I ran through it as I was an investigator.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
Yeah. So what got me into all of this, it was, I guess we'll start from when I was a teenager is the easiest place if I've always had a love for what makes people tick. And as a result, I thought I was going to grow up and be a true crime writer. I wanted to be like Anne Rule. She's actually still one of my heroes.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
And here's all the reasons why I wouldn't have put this case forward and how that investigator did a terrible job.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
that actually became one of the best and most popular posts on my blog. Somebody claiming there was an altercation in this truck cab with no cup holders, but they had just gone to get food. Somebody's going to have food all over them and they're out in public. Nobody saw these people covered with food. I highly doubt it.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
So it's things that you step through that I'm lucky that I've got the professional training, but some of it is just common sense too. And I will say having that opportunity to be able to voice things for people
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
and break it down in a way that makes things, I guess, less difficult to understand and more manageable, that makes it a lot easier too of just empowering people so that they're like, I'm not going to fall for that. I know what happened.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
Yeah, which isn't very common, the craziest part to me. And that's encouraging to me to hear a judge like, oh, thank goodness, we're going to be okay. There's actually a judge out there who's like common sense. You know, like it shouldn't be common sense for a judge to not understand mental health. It shouldn't be common sense for a judge to not consider that somebody, you know, has autism.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
But yet here we are. We still unfortunately have judges who are like, no, this person is just a terrible person and they're evil. And that's not true.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
And as I grew up and got older, I realized writing does not pay the bills and was talked into more practical workflow and careers. I ended up becoming a public servant for the federal government, finished a bachelor's degree. And it was during the pandemic that I realized there's more to me than all of this. There's more to me than this problem solver at work.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
There is. And the sad part is that judges and prosecutors, they have the most power and they don't even either don't realize it or they don't want to realize it because there unfortunately is a lot of money and punishment. But if you have diversion programs for adults, which there are places, I'm lucky that the county I live in has phenomenal diversion programs. They do have mental health court.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
They have treatment or substance abuse treatment courts. They have access to those things for people to divert them away because diversion ends up saving the taxpayer money.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
millions. And not just that, but it also creates jobs in those other sectors, and it creates just a more holistic and equitable environment overall. So if you're going to do that for adults, why not do that for juveniles? Now, I will say to you, Tack onto that, which is really fascinating of how far behind not just the country, but Michigan is when it comes to juvenile court.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
We just recently this year made it so juvenile defendants have access to court appointed attorneys that are paid for. That is so backward of like, you have these kids that you're basically saddling debt. And it was up until a couple months ago, completely okay to do it. It's bonkers. Like the common sense does not exist in the system or just empathy sometimes.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
Absolutely. One thing that they say, especially for people who are neurodivergent or if you're like me, and you have ADHD, the joke is that ADHD brings friends to the party. Usually there's coexisting things that go along with it. Like for me, I struggle with math. I have dyscalculia, but I also have anxiety. So I have these things that I have to deal with in addition to my ADHD.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
People on the autism spectrum, they have the same thing happen where you can have autism and ADHD together and anxiety.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
You can have all of those things and we need to understand that's not an outlier. It's the norm of the human experience of there's a unique mix of things going on at any given time.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
How do I cope? For me, sometimes action is the best way to keep me busy. And if I feel like I've got control over a situation and if I'm doing, I feel better. If I'm helping people, I usually feel better, even if I'm not doing anything to improve my situation. And for all other things, there's hot baths and crochet that'll take care of that. But
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
The big things for me is like, how can I serve others and help others just to make sure that somebody is being taken care of, even if things aren't necessarily going right in my world.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
I think the most important thing that anybody can do is learn about the criminal justice system now because the odds that you or a loved one will end up getting entangled or involved at some point in time in your life are pretty high. So it's better to educate yourself now
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
I want to go make a difference in the world. And at that point in time, I went and pursued a master's in criminal justice, hoping that I could eventually transfer to Department of Justice. The plans that life had for me were so much weirder because my spouse ended up getting accused of a white collar crime just two months after I graduated from my program.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
And protect yourself and know your rights, not just constitutionally, but legally within your own state because every state is different. But also advocate because you never know. You could be one bad day away, one mental health emergency away from being in that hot seat. and potentially going to prison.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
And the way that we treat people now is going to make a big deal of difference for you if you end up in that seat. You have to both be informed, but most importantly, you have to care. And I will leave that The whole thing, if I have to give you guys anything of a quote from the very wise Dr. Seuss from the Lorax is, if people like you don't care, how does it go?
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
If people don't care like you or people like you don't care like a whole lot, then things won't get better. It's not. I butchered that quote, but that is one of my favorite quotes from the Lorax. And I think it was a defining quote that I still take with me. And I hope other people take it with them too.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
No, I had a blast. And also congratulations on being in the top three today. Like, what an accomplishment.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
Being educated, having a master's degree level education, believed I have an idea of how the system works. These are the things that should happen. Then having a crash course with it, supporting somebody who is now a defendant, I realized, no, this is not at all the case. Things are very different than how I perceived them to be.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
Walking into it, I tried to give everyone the benefit of a doubt, believing, hey, these are professionals. They know what they're doing. I can trust the powers that be. My spouse was talked into a plea deal in October of 2023. Or I'm sorry, 2022. We get to January 2023. He goes to sentencing believing we're going to be okay out of all of this. He had just started a woodworking business.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
We get there and he is out of nowhere sentenced to 10 to 20 years in prison by the judge.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
Incredibly traumatic, but part of me, just in my gut, I was like, something is, other than what just happened to me, something is very wrong here. It sparked a need to find out what went so wrong. I ended up finding out that this particular county where all of this happened has a really long history of railroading people, mistreating people with disabilities, especially autism.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
I started publishing all of it. As a result of that, of looking for answers and trying to help people, I've been able to really plug into an amazing community and really just become who I am today. Somebody who's pursuing a doctorate in human services, trying to make the system better.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
Somebody who also still publishes about corruption and still puts those pieces out and helps people when they land in the middle of this, not sure where to go. So that's how I got here.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
I do. I still do a lot of blogging. I also do a lot of like content creation for I work for a nonprofit called Resilience Education. Amazing people. We do both in prison education and then post incarceration support of helping people get back up on their feet. I still write daily. I would be shocked to see if there is not something that I could find to write about.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
There's always something going on in the system, unfortunately. There's always some type of inequity, whether it's, unfortunately, the young man who recently lost his life in Idaho who had autism, or how does somebody get involved in court watching to prevent judicial misconduct and be able to inform their community of what's happening and help people make more informed decisions when voting?
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
whether it's through LinkedIn or connecting with people or on my blog. Be careful what you wish for, right? Because I did become a true crime writer.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
So a big part of my spouse's case actually was what plugged me into it. I had already known from my education and then also from continuing ed that trauma, mental illness can play a very heavy role in the presence of criminality or what we define as a society as criminality. Because especially those judgment centers of your brain may not be firing the way that they should be.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
We found out actually after my spouse was incarcerated that he had high-functioning autism. Suddenly it was like everything clicked into place of like how sometimes he'd be looking at me but not looking at me or how his thoughts would be like so much farther ahead than everybody else's. Like we knew to an extent we were neurodivergent. Like I have ADHD. And so do our children.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
But to find out from another level that was going on, that's when that collision course happened of I had that foundation already of knowing about mental illness and issues. But then I guess not just the connection close to home, but then also making friends in the community. And through my work, I started to see how prevalent it was and how we don't really talk about it as a society.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
So there's nothing I hate being told more than you can't do that.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
Or there's nothing you can do about it. And I'm like, oh, really? Because there's always something you can do. There's always a way you can advocate or work towards something and make the system more equitable. Some of the things that I've seen happen in the system, especially like in terms of like prison misconduct or COs behaving badly.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
I guess the biggest claim to fame is I actually had a prosecutor moved from one county to another very secretly, very quietly. But obviously, being a data person, I'm tracking and seeing what's going on. But knowing that they had actually covered up and abused a defendant for years and years, it was actually because of Ryan, my spouse's case, that we were able to uncover all of that.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
And this guy had spent 18 years damaging defendants' lives basically through plea bargains, through mismanaged and misdocumented plea bargains. And I was like, I'm not going to stand by and wait. And everybody was like, you can't say anything. You can't publish that. And I'm like, why not? They're an elected official. This is my tax dollars at work.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
In some ways, it became a hurdle because I got so good at it that I was actually hit with retaliatory charges. So that wasn't fun, but I've had a lot of people who are like, you're not crazy. A lot of people from the criminal justice reform community especially criminal defense lawyers. Like you are absolutely spot on in your observation.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
Then I also have a lot of people come to me and what do I do next? Where do I go? How do I get help? And so I've inadvertently had to start creating those resources because there aren't any. So walking people through, hey, I know that there is allegedly this agency that's supposed to help you, but don't do that.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
Go here instead because you're going to have a better outcome or find community members in a particular area. Like, for example, resilience, people who understand what you're going through and can help support you on that next phase of life. Just helping people kind of circumvent because there are people who can be predatory out there and take advantage of those who don't know the ins and outs.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
Yes, absolutely it has. I've had some incredible opportunities. I've been able to write testimony for some bills, especially here in Michigan. One that we're working on right now with Michigan Citizens for Prison Reform is ending solitary confinement because it's a very mentally degrading experience, especially more so if you're somebody who already suffers from autism.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
There's one of those bills that we're getting ready to have. We're getting ready to host a legislative day on May 6th where I'll be there to help get people back and forth to their appointments to meet their legislators and start putting a face to the person. Because, you know, legislators need to understand that when they're writing law, they're affecting real people.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
And so that's part of the reason that I've gotten involved with that. I've also met a lot of really cool lawyers, like your last guest, Doug. I've met him through LinkedIn. Amazing individual. I'm really lucky with the community that sprung up around me and that I've not had stones thrown at me and cast me down.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
It's more of like people who have helped me stand back up and find my voice and give me the microphone to an extent.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
Absolutely. And that's one thing that I think I got tagged in on for legislative day is like, can you help people tell their story? Because I have been able to create mine or put mine forward in a more punchy way of this happened. I wasn't happy about it. Here's what I did. And that's a big battle of you need to hear a group of people.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
Because like you said, if it's just one off or two off, legislators are going to blow that off and think that you're an outlier. But it's not the case at all. We're a silent majority. It's just something that the media doesn't cover.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
My goals. I tag into a lot of projects and a lot of people reach out to me in terms of criminal justice. I have a very big heart for it. And I'd had the most wonderful compliment last week of somebody said, you have the heart for this and you need that to be successful. So I plan on advocating more. I don't know that I'll ever run for office. I don't think I would want to do that.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
But I definitely want to help people survive the trenches and build them up so they don't feel alone because that does happen a lot. And then also, I really want to see more legislation on criminal justice mental health reforms and especially autism reform because there is... I think we're at a fever pitch right now where not just...
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
The law enforcement side needs to understand it better, but the public in general needs to understand it better too if we want to see meaningful change.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
That's the painful part. And especially when you're sitting in the middle of the system and you have a loved one that's on that other side, that's where it starts to really be like, oh, this is going so slow. But I find that if you have something healthy to focus on and something to work toward, it makes that weight a little bit better because...
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
You're not just at that point doing something for you. You're setting the table for everyone else behind you. And that's the most beautiful part is you're going through pain right now, but you're making it better for somebody on the other side.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
Yeah. So some of the more creative things I've done is I've always had a knack for like web design and development. So I've created websites. I've done change.org petitions. A lot of people do those, but they don't always get attention. You have to make sure that you're writing it well, that you're designing graphics for it.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
I've actually done some creative things in terms of sending people awards like least informed prosecutor. I've had awards made up on Etsy, which is I wouldn't advise that. Don't do that. They may not like that. But I've also been on some podcasts, which is great. We've had, let's see, what are some other things we've done? I wouldn't advise it, but robol calls, that sometimes gets attention.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
Some of the biggest things you can do is just, and this is gonna be the weirdest one to say, but I think a lot of people get it, say the quiet part out loud. Share your experience, but put it into something that's not necessarily heavy, but something that's quick to share. Just doing that on social media and finding your own, I think is one of the best ways And then organizing people.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
So those are some of the things that we've had to do. But then even getting on, as strange as it sounds, like the Nextdoor app, we've been able to find people who were also impacted by judges and prosecutors, by some law enforcement misconduct. Just by asking questions and saying, hey, has anybody seen anything weird or had anything weird happen with this?
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Rita Williams: How One Woman Transformed Personal Trauma into Criminal Justice Reform
And there are a lot of people, they're just dying to tell their story because nobody's listening. Or you have a group who's, oh, no, that couldn't possibly happen here. You have this person who's been downtrodden. If you approach them, suddenly they're not alone anymore and they're just ready to talk.