Tony Mantor: Why Not Me ? - Judge Milton Mack: A Man on a Mission to Reform Mental Health

Episode Date: December 18, 2025

Judge Milton Mack shares his mission to reform the mental health system by moving from crisis intervention to early treatment and prevention. His groundbreaking work in Michigan demonstrates how changing laws and procedures can dramatically improve outcomes while reducing costs. • Moving from an inpatient model to an outpatient world where over 90% of mental health care now occurs • Changing intervention standards to help people before they reach crisis, not waiting for the "magic moment" of danger • Implementing mediation for mental health cases to increase engagement and compliance • Creating a system that reduces trauma by avoiding unnecessary hospitalization and incarceration • Demonstrating success through Genesee County's 70% reduction in hospitalization and 90% treatment compliance • Building coordinated stakeholder systems where law enforcement, hospitals, courts and treatment providers work together • Focusing on upstream solutions to prevent people from entering the criminal justice system • Recognizing that early intervention in mental health is as important as early intervention for cancer We need to intervene early—we wouldn't wait to treat someone with cancer when they're stage four, and we do just as much damage by waiting to treat mental illness. Assisted outpatient treatment is the most humane option, far better than hospitalization, jail, or homelessness. This approach benefits everyone. https://tonymantor.com https://Facebook.com/tonymantor https://instagram.com/tonymantor https://twitter.com/tonymantor https://youtube.com/tonymantormusic intro/outro music bed written by T. Wild Why Not Me  music published by Mantor Music (BMI) The content on Why Not Me: Embracing Autism amd Mental Health Worldwide, including discussions on mental health, autism, and related topics, is provided for informational and entertainment purposes only. The views and opinions expressed by guests are their own and do not reflect those of the podcast, its hosts, or affiliates.Why Not Me is not a medical or mental health professional and does not endorse or verify the accuracy, efficacy, safety of any treatments, programs, or advice discussed.Listeners should consult qualified healthcare professionals, such as licensed therapists, psychologists, or physicians, before making decisions about mental health or autism- related care.Reliance on this podcast's contents is at the listener's own risk. Why Not Me is not liable for any outcomes, financial or otherwise, resulting from actions taken based on the information provided. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to Why Not Me, embracing autism and mental health worldwide, hosted by Tony Mantor. Broadcasting from the heart of Music City, USA, Nashville, Tennessee. Join us as our guests share their raw, howful stories. Some will spark laughter, others will move you to tears. These real-life journeys inspire, connect, and remind you. that you're never alone. We're igniting a global movement to empower everyone to make a lasting difference

by fostering deep awareness, unwavering acceptance, and profound understanding of autism and mental health. Tune in, be inspired, and join us in transforming the world one story at a time. Hi, I'm Tony Mantor. Welcome to Why Not Me, embracing autism and autism.

and mental health worldwide. We're taking a brief holiday break, so we'd like to wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. We also want to take the time to share one of our favorite episodes from the past six months for you to enjoy.

So before we dive into our episode, we'll be back with an uninterrupted show right after a word from our sponsors. Today we're thrilled to be joined by a truly remarkable guest, Judge Milton Mack. Judge Mack brings a wealth of experience to the conversation, having served as the state court administrator for the Michigan Supreme Court

and as chair of the Governor's Mental Health Diversion Council. He's also held the role of Chief Judge of the Wayne County Probate Court and worked as a consultant and advisor for numerous advocacy groups. In 2017, his groundbreaking policy paper decriminalization of mental illness fixing a broken system played a pivotal role in the creation of the National Justice Task force to examine state court's response to mental illness, where he served as co-chair from 2019 to 2020. With his deep expertise and passion for reform, it's an absolute honor to have Judge Mack with us today. Thanks for coming on. Well, I've spent a passion mine for some years now, so we're making progress. Yes, it's a great passion. Can you tell us why it became a passion of

yours? Well, when I became a probate judge, that's why I started hearing these mental health cases, and I had no familiarity with them at all. But it did take me long to say, I don't think this is working. I'm seeing the same people over and over and over again. This person's been hospitalized by every probate judge who's served since 1970, and with multiple hospitalizations, and it just seemed to me that things weren't working. We weren't accomplishing anything that we were just in this revolving door, I started to agitate for change, you might say. This led to my being appointed to the governor's Mental Health Commission in 2004. When I was appointed, the points I wanted to make were the mental health system was an

inpatient model in an outpatient world. It was focused on hospitalization and preventing hospitalization, but not promoting that, not focused on getting people well. So I advocated a number of changes which the commission adopted, but I really got nowhere. But I kept plug a law and then one day, Channel 7 came in and wanted to film a mental health case. Early in my career, I probably would not have done that. But I thought, you know, the public should see this. They used to see what's going on.

So I'm televised in a mental health trial. That led to the investigative reporter coming in and saying he wanted to do a series, filming cases, talking to the family members, talking to persons with the mental illness and so forth. The series was called Waiting for Disaster. I said the way the mental health system works is you just imagine a train going down the tracks and the bridge is out. So we have two choices. We can dial up the engineer and say the bridge is out without the train. Or we can park ambulances at the bottom of the ravine and pick up the dead and wounded.

Well, that's how the mental health system is working. We wait for crisis and then we intervene. The 2004 Mental Health Commission report said we live in the recovery era or mental illness is treatable. recovery as possible. People with mental illness can lead productive, satisfy lives if they get early treatment. But the system was not designed to permit early treatment. It was designed to wait till that magic moment just before someone actually killed themselves or killed someone else or did something terrible. Yes, I've heard that from several people. What approach did you take that you thought might work for change? My effort has been trying to change the system. Ironically, I had thought I'd run into a brick wall with Michigan.

And I've been a probate judge for 25 years and the Chief Justice asked me to be state court administrator. So I agreed to do it. And when I became a state court administrator, this made me a member of the conference of state court administrators. They drew a paper over here on a topic of some sort. So I volunteered to do a paper on the mental health system and how we can change the system. So intervene early, reduce hospitalization and incarceration, and you improve people's lives.

They actually chose the paper as the paper for that year. That led to creation of a national task force. In the meantime, all of a sudden, the logjam broke loose in Lansing. I was able to get a series of bills passed in 2016 and 2018 that changed the way the process works in Michigan. We're seeing real differences now. Are there other things that you do as well? One of the things I do is I do CIT training for law enforcement.

And I tell them about the new mental health code in Michigan, how it's now an inpatient, it's now an outpatient model in an outpatient world. And when I say that, it's because over 90 percent of... while the treatment for mental illness is on an outpatient basis. So the system should reflect that. We should find a way to help people get help when they need it. If you go back to 1963, the Community Mental Health Act, the bill was designed to do two things, significantly reduced number of people in hospital and provide an outpatient system of care of an alternative. The outpatient treatment system didn't happen. So what happened? We got two million people in America with serious

mental illness in jail every year. We have well over 300,000 in our state prison system, but serious mental illness because you're left untreated. People think that guardianship is for adults. Now, over half of our guardianships harbor people, serious mental illness who never got the treatment they needed when it would have made a difference. So my objection has been to create a system over intermediarily and avoid the use of hospitals as well as jails and prisons. hospitals are not therapeutic environments, number one. Well, they're more than jails and persons, but they're designed to stabilize someone. Not to get them into recovery, not to get them well, but stable.

So just for example, in Wayne County, which is where Detroit's located, we did a study. Over a five-year period, we had 15,000 petitions for mental health treatment or 9,000 individuals. 600 of those 9,000 people accounted for 36% of all the petitions filed. There was less than 1% of the population, but 36% of the petitions, and they are with all the front of the faces that rotate in and out of the system constantly. We looked at the top users of the system. We had 79 people who had at least 10 petitions in the previous five years. Those individuals in the prior fiscal year, we spent $3.3 million on hospitalization, $1.6 million on incarceration, were a total of $4.9 million. And for that $4.9 million,

we got nothing. One individual had 46 business to the ER. So at what point in time do we say, this is not working, really not working. Wow, that's amazing. So what was the next step to make a change? So we have changed the standard for intervention. We don't wait until someone's dangerous to solve for others. We want to know, do you have a mental illness?

Do you understand your need for treatment? Are you faced with decompensation, deterioration? And does this create a risk of harm? The harm doesn't have to be immediate. So, for example, we had a case in Michigan. At the trial, the mental health trial, the doctor testified that the individual was not presently at risk of harm. However, he had a history of stopping taking his medicine. And the doctor testified that he could be expected to stop taking his medicine in three to six months,

and he would then be at risk of harm, harm in the form of drug abuse, suicide, increased risk of dementia, and so forth. And the court of appeal said, yeah, that's good enough. We're kind of looking at the total circumstance, which is get something into treatment. What we've done in Michigan is we actually have a system of mediation for mental health cases, which I think is kind of unique. Works best for petitions where we ask for outpatient treatment only. So we have a system in Michigan now where you can file a petition with the probate court, don't go to the hospital, don't go in the police department.

The person, let me put it this way. when I'm hearing cases in probate court, and I'd ask family members, when did he stop taking his medication? And they say, six months ago, eight months ago, we all know where this is going. We're just waiting for the magic moment. Well, no, we don't have to wait anymore. Taking a file a projection with the probate court and get a hearing on whether to order outpatient treatment.

And then as an extra tool, instead of going to a full hearing, you can say, let's go to mediation. So we have mediation centers across the state. we have about 100 mediators who are trained in mental health issues to mediate these disputes. If you're going to mediate an agreement with someone who has a mental illness, you have engagement. You have the likelihood of compliance. I have four bills pending the legislature right now. They have passed the Senate around the floor of the House as we speak. I might get attempts any minute now from Senator Hurtell telling me have we got them all done.

The bills I had introduced, expand mediation so that providers of care, will have a better option. The providers of care don't like to petition their clients for treatment. They'll certainly take advantage of mediation. They'll see if their client is beginning to decompensate. And before it gets too bad, it's going to get mediation. We are trying to make the process work better. These all sound like they're great ideas that you've been able to accomplish.

Have you had any bumps in the road in doing some of these things that you're trying to do? So we still have some blockages. me, for example, if I want someone to get outpatient treatment only, I have to have a psychiatrist testify. If I want them to be hospitalized, a psychologist can testify. To me, it was seen that the higher-ranking medical person ought to be talking about hospitalization and a lower echelon person talking about outpatient treatment. There's been tremendous resistant to these outpatient treatment orders.

What did you think what's going to happen when you empty the hospitals? What are you going to do with individuals who had to be hospitalized before? Just give you a comparison. New York State is where Kendra's law is adapted. And that's where in 1999 they started the idea of assisted outpatient patient treatment. So New York State right now has about 2,500 people on AOT with a population of 20 million. In Michigan, Genesee County, with a population of 400,000, has about 800 people on AOT orders. So New York City, or New York State, rather, used AOT the way.

Jesse County does here in Michigan, they have 20,000 people on AOT. It's a preferred option to hospitalization. When we go out the hospitalization road, what that involves is the police go to someone's home, like the parents, and they go down and they effectively arrest the parents' son, and then take him out into a squad car and for all the neighbors and transport him to the hospital where he's held against his will for a few days, defending a trial in front of a judge in a black road. Now, that experience is pretty traumatic. Yes, that's what everyone says. Why do we have to do it that way? And we don't have to do it that way. We inflict trauma, and then the period of hospitalization is a few days. In fact, we measure length of stay by hundreds of a day.

So we say, okay, the average length of stay in Wayne County is 6.25 days. I don't know what the length of the stay is now. There's typically less than seven days. I've talked with a few judges that are just like you. They want to make change. How do we get this across to other judges around the country? There's a couple of things I think that are very important. One is, of course, you're helping people. Two, along with helping them, you're saving taxpayers millions of dollars by keeping them out of the judicial system. What's our best pathway forward to get this across the country?

Well, you know, judicial leadership really does matter. And after you're front, the Myers-Briggs personality profile. Basically, I saw a paper on this by judges, and judges tend to be introverts, and they tend to be reluctant to engage directly with the legislature. But you have to find the judicial leadership at each level. Now, when we formed the National Task Force, one of the recommendations by the National Task Force was every state, administrative, like the administrative level, Supreme Court level,

every state should have a behavioral health administrator at that level. And Michigan now has one, Illinois has one, Pennsylvania has one, and this provides leadership at the state level. Michigan and Wayne County, Judge Freddie Burden, formed a behavioral hub unit within the probate court to monitor this process from beginning to end, to create accountability by the hospital, the community treatment system, and so forth. And then the person he hired to run it has now been hired by the state to run the behavioral health unit for the state of Michigan.

And part of her mission is to find champions across the state. We don't need a lot of them, but we need one for region, for example. This can be copied across the country by each state court administrative office, having someone who's charged with that responsibility to find these individuals who are wanting to do this. So I'm seeing progress. I will admit, for the first 20 years, I wasn't seeing much progress. But things really started to change when that series came out. I had a call from the tenant governor's office, one in 12 if I would help fix the statute.

I thought back to my experience with the Mental Health Commission in 2004, where we made 70, some recommendations that got nothing. So is this not a wild goose chase? I was assured it wasn't. So I went up and did that and things are improving. There is a challenge, though. Implementation is a big deal.

So in the 50s, it was one-stop shopping. A person was committed to a facility, and that facility provided all the services of the person could possibly need. Well, now, that's not the case. Now you're in the community. So now we have stakeholders,

that all have an interest. Law enforcement is a stakeholder, the hospital, the emergency department, the community treatment system, the court families, and other schools and so forth. All these stakeholders, and we have all the makings of a mental health system,

but the stakeholders don't communicate with one another. They don't work together. They don't have warm handoffs, one place to the next. And so it just hasn't been working. So in Michigan, what we found was after these laws were adapted, a lot of the hospitals weren't complying with the laws

and needed to go to the community treatment agencies and neither were the courts. So we're changing the culture, and that's huge. Change the culture of an organization is hard to do. The culture has been, we don't give people treatment they don't want, even if they don't have the ability to make that decision.

So we're changing that. So the idea is, you've probably heard the term of anisognosia, Yes, I've heard that term many times in my travels with this topic. People who have a mental illness who are a sought process or compromised, they're not the ones exercising choice, but the illness is exercising the choice. What we want to do is free people so they can make our own choice,

free them from the effects of mental illness, get them in recovery. Aside from the economic sense, you know, avoiding jail, avoiding incarceration, which is expensive, especially people with mental illness who have to have extensive drugs. We spend a ton of money providing mental health treatment and our jails and prisons in what are not therapeutic environments. If we can get people that kind of care in the community, not only can they get well, but you can save a lot of money. Under Genesee County, they had a 70% reduction in hospitalization, and the individual

surrounding these outpatient treatment plans are implying with treatment, the level of 90%. And the satisfaction rate's like 92%. Now, when I was a judge, when I order some of the central hospital, I don't think my satisfaction level was very high. The average individual didn't appreciate me sending them to a hospital. But back in Genesee County, what happens is when they ordered outpatient treatment, a form is sent to the patient saying, a treatment is going to guide your treatment, and you're on the treatment team. They do everything they can to engage the individual to participate in the planning of their own treatment plan.

And an individual in that situation, feel like they're being listened to, and they respond. So I think there's a great opportunity to help people recover from mental illness, become productive citizens, substantially reduce hospitalization or emergency room costs, and substantially reduce incarceration. Yeah. Now, you were a part of the mental health diet. Diversion Council, correct? I'd share the Mental Health Diversion Council in Michigan.

How does that approach some of these issues? I think it goes in line to what you've been talking about. Does it give a bigger audience to the issues that we've been talking about? Yes, definitely, because we have stakeholders, all the stakeholders are in these meetings. We even had the Michigan Hospital Association. I suggested they'd be part of the Diversion Council. they were kind of curious why they were there. They didn't think they were part of the issue.

I said, actually, you're a big part of the issue, is if your system is going to work in, nothing's working. With the Divergent Council, we've been developing these statutory changes in 2016 and 18 and 19. So I've kind of expanded the notion of what diversion is. So in my view, diversion is a healthy mental health system that eat people from involving themselves in the criminal justice system at all.

It's a form of diversion, but it's rather expansive. I mean, the diversion council in the beginning was focused on people who are in jail and what could do for them. I want to focus on people before they end up in jail. You think about it, in Michigan, in an average year, between 150,000 and 200,000 people show up on hospital and emergency rooms. On the other hand, no health courts we have in Michigan, which we have a lot. We have over 200 courts that do this sort of.

to work. But only about 3% of the people who have a mental illness in our state jails are in a treatment court. The treatment courts are expensive and you can't scale them up. So if you really want to make a difference, go upstream, help people stay well so they don't get in trouble with the law. Now, does the council work with the legal system, like lawyers, DAs, that type of people so that they can get more information about what needs to be done to help these people? Yeah. It's my understanding that once a person gets in front of a judge, that's when the legal system judges, lawyers, DAs, even some defense,

don't understand the mental health situation. That's true. But we're having one of our bills to create a diversion process for those who are charged at lift meters. So currently in Michigan and most states, when you're charged with the crime, you have a mental illness, they send you to the Forensic Center for an evaluation and they have to ensure if you're competent to stand trial or not.

If you're not competent to stand trial, they have to make you competent to stand trial so they can convict you. Now, for misdemeanors, sending those individuals to the Forensic Center is an enormous waste of time, talent, money, resources. Because at the end of the day, all you're going to get is a conviction from this demeanor.

For an individual, it was going to reaffound. So to be much smarter, so instead of saying this person to the Forensic Center, you send him into a successful outpatient treatment and drop a criminal charges. Now, when we put together that legislation, we have the support of the Michigan Prosecutors Association, as well as the defense buyer. We had the support of the disability rights people. So they all saw this is a better option. because if we can take someone who's mentally ill committing misdemeanors and get them well,

then we're not going to have to deal with them again in the criminal justice system. So let's see if we go out extreme and take care of people before they get in trouble with the criminal justice system, then you're just going to significantly reduce the impact at that level. Have you had situations where you sit down with some people, tell them what you're trying to do, yet they're just still not getting behind you. While you're talking with them, you think it's going to be an upward battle. They're just not getting what you're trying to put across.

Then the more you get into it, the more you show them the facts, how they can save money. Most importantly, how they can make it a better system for everyone involved. Oh, yeah. It's been very enlightening.

It's been enlightening for stakeholders to find out how they are victims of a bad system. So, for example, the hospital emergency rooms are trying for the fact that their emergency rooms are crowded with people of mental illness. And I point out, well, you know, if we take care of that properly, they will be coming to your emergency rooms or law enforcement. Yeah, one third of all the people in this country with a serious mental illness, their pathway to care with through law enforcement, which is kind of staggering. So people in law enforcement are on the front line. There's not a police officer around who won't tell you that dealing with people with behavioral health issues is a big part of their job. If we can take care of that at the mental health treatment level, we help them out.

And we even help out community treatment because if you get people on their into treatment and into recovery, it puts less pressure on everybody all the way around. people eventually see it. You are so correct there. The police officer is the first one most times that they come in contact with. The unfortunate part is sometimes the officer has only seconds to make a decision on what to do. The more we can get them to understand the better situations we can have. So when they do come in contact with someone that has a mental illness, they might be able to have a better outcome.

Right. Well, you know, I think you spoke with Judge DeV. Steve Lifman, I believe, already. Yes. And he's a master with that. He's, it's amazing what he's done. Florida is not a Medicaid expansion state, and they don't have a good civil system or mental health issues like we do in Michigan. So to that extent, Michigan really is in an advantageous position. And theoretically, we should be doing better than what Judge. Lifeman is doing. Judge Lifeman has got a hit start on us.

So we're still trying to catch up. But we're trying to, we're moving into, we're lying on crisis centers, it's out of hospitals. And, you know, if we ride outpatient treatment, crisis centers and so forth, and hospital emergency rooms

have been a lot different. Yeah. I think he's got a 218,000 square foot facility that he's opening up. I've been down there and checked it out. It's quite a, what an operation. Yeah, it's great. I think that's what we need is more people like him, yourself, to show people that change can be made. Not only does that change help loss of people,

it also saves tremendous amount of money and time within the legal system that can be better put to use for other things. It eliminates all kinds of risk, all kinds of danger. And I mean, you're still going to have situations, but you can reduce a number. You can manage it better. Absolutely. Now, what would you like to leave with our listeners that you think is very important for them to understand on what it is that you're trying to do to help people? Well, we need to intervene early. We don't wait to treat someone. We wouldn't wait to treat someone with cancer under stage four. We would you just as much damage by waiting to treat mental illness. And it is no, you're not depriving people of their freedom when you're

freeing them from the impact of mental illness which is left untreated. And assisted a patient treatment is the most humane treatment possible. It's better than being treated in the hospital, far better than being treated in jail, and far better than being treated in jail. And we should do this. And it's good for everyone. Absolutely. Well, I definitely, I definitely appreciate you coming on. Great information, great conversation. All right, thanks a lot. I appreciate you doing this.

It's been my pleasure. Thanks again. Thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to listen to our show today. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you. If you know someone who has a story to share, tell them to contact us at why not me. One last thing, spread the word about why not me. Our conversations, our inspiring guests that show you are not alone in this world.