Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
John Puls : Autism, Justice, and Understanding: Navigating the Criminal System
Tue, 15 Apr 2025
Send us a textJohn Puls, a psychotherapist specializing in forensic work, shares critical insights on navigating the intersection of autism, mental health, and the criminal justice system. He draws on his extensive experience working with individuals in crisis to offer practical guidance for families and caregivers.• Working as a psychotherapist with both autistic individuals and those with severe mental health issues• Providing forensic services including testifying for involuntary commitment cases and mitigation for reduced sentencing• Crisis Intervention Trained (CIT) officers and Service Population Advocates as promising but limited resources• Finding qualified legal representation that understands autism and mental health issues• Advocating with prosecutors and judges to focus on treatment rather than punishment• Writing personalized letters to judges explaining family support and treatment plans• Seeking local mobile crisis teams instead of calling law enforcement when possible• Connecting with support groups to learn from other families' experiences navigating the system• Properly communicating needs to first responders to avoid unnecessary arrestsIf you know anyone who would like to tell their story, send them to TonyMantor.com. Tell everyone everywhere about Why Not Me? The World, the conversations we're having, and the inspiration our guests give to show that you are not alone in this world.https://tonymantor.comhttps://Facebook.com/tonymantorhttps://instagram.com/tonymantorhttps://twitter.com/tonymantorhttps://youtube.com/tonymantormusicintro/outro music bed written by T. WildWhy Not Me the World music published by Mantor Music (BMI)
Chapter 1: Who are the hosts and guests of this podcast episode?
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 Hand Cuffs, The Silent Crisis special event. Joining us today is John Poles, a psychotherapist who is a licensed clinical social worker and a master certified addiction professional.
He'll 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.
Chapter 2: What is John Puls's professional background and expertise?
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 master certified addiction professional. I really started working in the field, I would say in about 2013, originally as like a support staff or what we would call like a behavioral health technician and inpatient units. And then I went back to school.
One of my first jobs was my undergraduate was actually at South County Mental Health Center, which is a crisis stabilization unit. So I 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, state-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 placements 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.
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Chapter 3: What does forensic work involve in the context of mental health?
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 or 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 assess 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 Act. And then also we have a unique law in 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. 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 inpatient units, subsequently receive subpar care and monitoring.
So I'll 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 side 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 found as far as the criminal justice system, various proceedings, is that not only do they not understand it, they're not really making an attempt to understand it.
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Chapter 4: How does the criminal justice system misunderstand autism and mental illness?
Family wouldn't mind me bringing this up, but I had a patient that was in a mental health facility that was diagnosed with, I believe it was schizophrenia or schizoaffective 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 then going to the county jail where they received no treatment, of course. And through a lot of tired advocacy from both their guardian and myself, we were able to transfer to a proper program. But I think all the criminal justice would see is, hey, this person assaulted someone.
This person is a 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 providing 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 darts at 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 enforcement did this, police did this, and they are in very difficult situations and they have seconds to act.
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 Palm Beach County, for example, we have what are called CIT officers, so crisis intervention trained officers.
They receive specific training on how to address and work with somebody that is in severe mental distress or may have autism in order to properly de-escalate and handle it. And you can actually, in terms of calling 911, 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.
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Chapter 5: What role do first responders play in mental health crises involving autism?
And that person 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 what I see often happen 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 advocate 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, yes, your loved one is in jail. This is terrible. But let's find some appropriate attorneys and legal representation. Grill them a little bit. Ask them, 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.
Chapter 6: What specialized training exists for law enforcement to handle mental health crises?
And it's not just the first person you find 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 night 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 hike, because again, that's a lot of money, right? Families often don't have unlimited resources.
I usually just recommend 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 counsel. 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 elsewhere. But you're right. It's often an impossible situation.
And families are panicked. They're anxious. Their brain is in 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?
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Chapter 7: How can families find legal representation knowledgeable about autism and mental health?
But I couldn't believe it. I'm like, oh, yeah, we do this all the time in California. This is part of the deal. And I was like, wow, I wonder what it would be like if that was able to be replicated. So they actually had a mental health professional advocating for the person to receive proper treatment and care and educating the legal system. There was a full-time staff member.
They had multiple of them, depending on the county. But absent from that, because that is certainly not the norm. It's not the norm in Florida. And I'm sure it's not the norm in most states. You know, what that looks like is I'll back up and say most prosecutors, while, of course, they're 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. Seriously advocating for 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 treatment 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. There's 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.
First thing I'll mention is that, and again, most counties actually do have the ability, the county will actually pay a mitigation specialist. 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 the 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.
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Chapter 8: What challenges do families face in court when advocating for autistic loved ones?
So if your loved one is having these issues, find some local support groups, local autism support groups, caregiver support groups, NAMI 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 are the family members in terms of navigating the legal system with their loved ones because they've 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 adrenaline's pumping, you're having a hard time making decisions.
If you can have a grounding force and somebody that's been through this before 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. Thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule to listen to our show today. We hope that you enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you. If you know anyone that would like to tell us their story, send them to tonymantor.com. Contact, then they can give us their information so one day they may be a guest on our show.
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