Can AI Truly Understand Human Needs in Justice Systems?

Judge Ginger Lerner-Wren brings a rare and powerful perspective to the criminal justice system. With nearly three decades on the bench in Florida and a background in disability rights advocacy, she offers insights you simply won't find elsewhere. Her journey from working directly in a psychiatric hospital to founding America's first Mental Health Court has equipped her with a truly unique understanding of how justice and healing can intersect.

What happens when we apply artificial intelligence to mental health decisions? Judge Lerner-Wren raises profound questions about whether technology can ever truly address the authentic, individualized needs of people with mental health conditions. Having witnessed the gaps in community support firsthand, she understands the human dimensions that algorithms might miss. As governments rush toward technological solutions, her caution reminds us that efficiency shouldn't come at the expense of effectiveness, especially for vulnerable populations.

The conversation takes a compelling turn toward the concept of "sanism" - the often-unacknowledged discrimination against people with mental health conditions that treats them as less than fully human. Judge Lerner-Wren's advocacy for peer support specialists highlights how lived experience can transform services and now could potentially improve AI systems as well. Her observations about COVID's impact on social connection for both youth and seniors illuminate how isolation affects mental wellbeing across generations.

Social media presents both promise and peril in this landscape. While certain platforms drive passive consumption rather than meaningful interaction, Judge Lerner-Wren demonstrates how digital connections can spread innovations in therapeutic justice globally. Her vision of judges and lawyers as peacekeepers rather than just punishers offers a refreshing alternative to traditional approaches. Join us for this thought-provoking conversation about human connection, justice, and healing in an increasingly technological world. Follow AXSChat to continue exploring how we can create more inclusive systems that truly serve everyone's needs.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome Back Judge Ginger Lerner-Wren
• 3:45 Judge's Unique Background in Disability Rights
• 6:28 AI Risks in Mental Health Decision-Making
• 13:40 COVID's Impact on Social Connection
• 18:35 Building Communities Through Social Media
• 26:40 Social Media's Effects on Youth

Transcript

Neil Milliken: 0:01

Hello and welcome to AXSChat. I'm absolutely delighted that we have a returning guest today. Judge Ginger Leonard-Wren, you've been on AXSChat a couple of times before. It's always a pleasure. You're always interacting with us on social media. Love what you do. But for those of our audience that are new to the podcast or new to Access Chat on social media, can you tell us a little bit about your background and the work that you're doing with the Mental Health Corps and all of the other organizations that you so happily support?

Judge Ginger Lerner-Wren: 0:35

Thank you so much and it is such a thrill to be back. I think this might be my third visit to AXS Chat. I think this might be my third visit to Access Chat. I think the first one might have been in 2015 or 16, something to that effect, but always a thrill. I feel like you're my family, part of my international civil rights, disability rights family and for your viewers.

Judge Ginger Lerner-Wren: 1:02

First of all, I am a county court criminal judge. I sit in the state of Florida, broward County, florida, and that is for your listeners, as I always believe it's probably more relevant to say. I'm about 40 minutes north of Miami and Fort Lauderdale is the biggest city or maybe the most well-known city in Broward County, and I have been a county court judge now going on my 29th year, believe it or not. I know it looks like I'm just a newbie judge. No, I'm kidding, it's really really hard to believe. I come from talking from an access chat construct.

Judge Ginger Lerner-Wren: 1:57

My background is very, very unusual for a judge. I come out of the disability rights space I was formerly when I got out of law school, couldn't really find a good fit for me and I ultimately ended up being appointed to an office called the Public Guardian's Office in Broward County. It was a fabulous, fabulous program that fell under the probate court where I would be in charge of an office with other social workers. I was the director and it would be our responsibility to take care of the welfare, to take care of the welfare, health, finances, housing, all services for adults who had been declared incapacitated to proceed in the probate court and they had no family members to care for them. And this is a statutory post. It was a chief judge appointment and in that role I really flourished. I was able to do incredible community collaboration with other stakeholders, other agencies, filling gaps in services, and I just loved it so much was giving a speech at our state psychiatric hospital down in Pembroke Pines, florida.

Judge Ginger Lerner-Wren: 3:28

The governor at the time was threatening to close this very, very large at the time state institution that actually served the whole bottom half of the state of Florida, so it was impacting thousands of people who otherwise didn't have anywhere to go. We had no real mental health community-based system to talk about, to speak of in Broward County and I gave a speech and one of our commissioners heard me speak and received a call soon after asking me if I would come on board and serve with the Advocacy Center for Persons with Disabilities on a federal class action. I would be the plaintiff's monitor on behalf of the patients, the residents of South Florida State Hospital. It was a huge job. It was a traumatic job.

Judge Ginger Lerner-Wren: 4:26

Quite frankly, I'm probably the only judge maybe in the world who spent literally a year and a half in a psychiatric hospital, because that's my office, that's where I work, and I was in charge of all abuse, neglect complaints and, more to the point, which links into my pioneering work on the bench is I was also responsible for monitoring and overseeing the discharge process of patients from the state hospital into the community. It was my job to evaluate the discharge plans. Were they positive, were they negative? Of course, most were very not great because we just didn't have a lot of good placements for people to go to. They were very substandard assisted living programs, etc. And yet I was trained by an expert team across disciplines and so when I left that role to run for judge, I came to the bench with some very, very unique and special skill set.

Neil Milliken: 5:42

And so there's a lot to unpack there in terms of what you've brought to your role as judge, and in previous conversations we've talked about the mental health court that you founded and the work that you do on restorative justice. But before we reprise some of that, I thought something that you mentioned about the assessment of suitability for release into the community. This is something that is very topical at the moment, because what's happening with a lot of government services around the world is that they're looking for efficiency, particularly in your own country, and they're thinking that they can apply AI to the decision-making processes. Given your knowledge of working with people and in the field, and so on and so forth, what are the risks that applying AI to the release and decision-making processes or dealing with the risks of recidivism and so on, go into the idea that you can automate?

Judge Ginger Lerner-Wren: 6:54

I mean, I'm also a college professor. For almost 20 years I've been teaching graduate studies for Nova Southeastern University in forensic psychology, as well as a doctoral program in criminal justice. And you know worry. I mean I know AI is so powerful and could be used for such good. I guess the fundamental question that I have is can you really meet the authentic humanistic needs of individuals applying an AI? Dynamic needs are so unique and individualized. I worry that people's individualized needs may not necessarily get met through that process.

Neil Milliken: 7:53

I think that there really still needs to be the human knowledge in the loop. I also think that often these decision-making systems are built upon systems that have been trained and you don't know where that data has come from, but you know that it's historical data and the historical data contains those societal biases. Think about a process. The way that AI is configured to find patterns doesn't really help in terms of helping outliers and people with mental health issues, people with disabilities.

Judge Ginger Lerner-Wren: 8:35

And all kinds of neurocognitive disorders.

Neil Milliken: 8:40

So you don't have to be, I think, an expert in AI or how it works to understand that there are ethical implications to the application of it.

Judge Ginger Lerner-Wren: 9:06

So, as an advocate as a practitioner, how could people like yourself help the people that are building systems to understand what they need to do to build fairer systems? I think that is such an important question and consideration and I wonder, you know how that collaborative, you know, vision, you know, would really be implemented where you have individuals? Even consumers themselves are experts, correct, and for the longest time, you know, consumers psychiatric consumers, for example, or consumers with all kinds of other disabilities, you know were not necessarily seen as experts, right, and yet they are, because it's that lived experience that needs to be translated, you know, into these processes. And I feel that without that, you know, you just kind of miss the boat, so to speak, in terms of really understanding just, for example, the impact of social stigma, and we've talked about that a lot in the past, neil and Antonio. You know what that impact of social stigma, you know, really means, you know, from being able to access safe housing, from the ability to get jobs and employment, or even the kind of care, the quality or level of care that people really need and also just to feel comfortable, you know, in one's community.

Judge Ginger Lerner-Wren: 10:32

So I just think that the idea of in my book, as you remember, we talk about the concept of sanism, correct? Yes, we talk about the concept of sanism, correct? Yes, and I'll just hold up the book not a plug, but just a refresher that I did write a book, as you know, many years ago A Court of Refuge Boys from the Bench of America's First Mental Health Court, published by Beacon Press in 2018. You gave me a great send-off when the book came out. I'll never forget it. But the idea of sanism is a really profound concept that was actually developed by a distinguished, nationally recognized now retired law professor by the name of Michael Perlin, and is the gravity of understanding what that means that you're really almost treated as not a human being.

Neil Milliken: 11:36

Yes. I think, Antonio's got a follow-up on that.

Antonio Santos: 11:42

I think one of the risks that we have is many of the people behind the systems on AI. They come from what we call a coding engineering background, where some elements are more prevalent in their work than others. No efficiency, where the human element or the needs of the humans who need to use the system sometimes are not really at the top of their minds. So when they need to build systems, they focus. There's a gap in terms of their knowledge and their training to understand the realities and the nuances of humanity, of us as people. And if those considerations are not done as a team of experts that are able to recommend practices, I think it's quite dangerous to give them, let's say, the floor to be the ones in charge of building this type of systems, to be the ones in charge of building this type of systems.

Antonio Santos: 12:45

And on the top of that, we also know that through history, we always have this tendency of using technology for everything, and sometimes technology is not really needed. No, it's useful, it's great, we enjoy the technology in our lives, but sometimes we need to consider do we really need the technology in our lives? But sometimes we need to consider do we really need the technology here? The fact that it exists doesn't mean that we have to use it. I think we know through history there are plenty of examples over the last decade where technology was used with damaging effects on human lives. We have examples in the UK. We have examples in the UK. We have examples in the United States as well. So I think we need to step back and look into those aspects whenever we have to consider the use of AI in the space of mental health, in the space of decision-making and heart in particular.

Judge Ginger Lerner-Wren: 13:40

You know I'm listening to you and I just space of decision-making and heart in particular.

Judge Ginger Lerner-Wren: 13:45

You know I'm listening to you and I just what keeps coming, antonio, when you were making those really, really important points, what started coming to me was what happened, for example, to our nation's youth and teens post-COVID correct, when they were relying on technology but they lost that human contact, human contact with their teachers, human contact with their friends in class. It got so bad in the United States, for example, because of that lack of social connection, that the Surgeon General in the United States actually had to put out an emergency advisory to parents and, you know, just for everybody in the United States to say, hey, you know, this is what we're seeing and our youth and our teens and our children are suffering and we really need to take steps, you know, in order to make sure that they're connecting, that you know, with family, with friends, that they're not isolated, that they're not overusing technology, for example, and, if they need mental health services, that they get access correct if they need mental health services, that they get access correct.

Neil Milliken: 15:02

So for sure, we've seen this and I think that, whilst some of the older generations were able to use social media and video conferencing tools and so on to stay in touch, we'd already built our networks, we already had our connections, and so we weren't. You know. Know the kind of? You can get away with the two-dimensional to a certain extent because you've already forged those more deep connections, you've already got them. But when you're in developing stages of life, you need the three dimensions and the touch and the smell and the proximity and so on. Yeah, we saw this within our own, within my own team actually. So I've been training young people for a long time now through apprenticeships, and the lads that joined on the second cohort were impacted by COVID, and so first and third cohorts were co-located. They were learning from each other. They were able to build a sort of team spirit. It was much harder for the lads that were having to do this during COVID, where they were confined to their bedroom and working from their bedroom.

Neil Milliken: 16:16

You know, especially as young people, you don't have the space. I'm privileged, you're privileged. You know, you, as young people, you don't have the space. I'm privileged, you're privileged, you know. You've got a nice comfortable, ergonomic chair, you have your office, we have a space in which we can work, and that is a privilege. Maybe we think we've earned that privilege through our work, but it's still a privilege, right? And the kids didn't have that. And other people that are not as lucky as us for multiple reasons, people that are not as lucky as us for multiple reasons, maybe because they've been excluded, because of mental health issues or psychosocial disabilities or other disabilities they don't have that space to work in, they don't have the networks either, and that has a tremendous impact on people's well-being.

Judge Ginger Lerner-Wren: 16:54

It does, it does, you know. I just want to add one point too, and we're talking just from a population health vantage point is also to consider, you know, seniors and older adults in that same dynamic, because the research and the data is showing that that isolation, post-covid for older adults is just as serious, just as detrimental, maybe even more, because a lot of seniors are lonely, they get isolated. They may already be retired, they're not out working or connecting and they may not even know how to use technology. So that's just another population I just wanted to bring up because they're one of my favorite populations, up because they're one of my favorite populations.

Antonio Santos: 17:43

I think that element is particularly important because we know how damaging isolation is in being the trigger for other mental health issues. I think that's something that no one questions today, and considering those dimensions and the nature of the individuals are particularly important. I wonder there's a topic that I would like to talk to you, considering the current situation we have made so much progress in this space over the last decade how we find a way to travel in time to make sure that we keep the base of that progress and we don't lose the effort or all the knowledge that we've built over the years.

Judge Ginger Lerner-Wren: 18:34

Wow, wow, antonio, wow, antonio.

Judge Ginger Lerner-Wren: 18:36

That's like something that I haven't crossed, that chasm in my own mind's eye, and when I think about that I'm thinking that it behooves all of us, I guess, because I don't think, I don't feel like we could necessarily rely now on institutions, whether it's schools, necessarily colleges, whatever political you know, offices that we could go to correct, to softening what's happening.

Judge Ginger Lerner-Wren: 19:10

Not only you know everyday life and we may not be able to do it on a political level, but at least on a human level.

Judge Ginger Lerner-Wren: 19:32

And one thing, when I was listening, you know, to Neil talking about, you know, and both of you talking about AI, what came to me I don't know, it just came into my mind was when, years ago I'm talking gosh, over 20 years ago for the first time, when consumers mental health consumers right realized that they are empowered right, realized that they are empowered correct and that they have value, value to go to work, value to serve others through their own lived experience.

Judge Ginger Lerner-Wren: 20:08

And then, before you knew it, peer support right began to emerge in the United States and that it was realized wait a minute, united States and that it was realized wait a minute there's real employment opportunities based on individuals' own lived experiences correct and to go into the workplace, to go into social services, to go into different kinds of capacities and I think, in that same spirit of having peer specialists. You know, I think that you know there's a lot that people offer in their own right to different parts of our community, different institutions, even, for example, to people in AI. Why I mean hiring a peer specialist right with disabilities, mental health issues, other neurocognitive issues, brain types of dynamics, I think would contribute so much to AI.

Neil Milliken: 21:10

I mean that needs to be a new employment step, that AI is going to not just destroy jobs but displace them, because we go through waves of technology creation and adoption and, yes, certain industries and jobs get highly disrupted and certain types of jobs go. I mean, you don't have double-entry bookkeepers anymore. We have spreadsheets and books and software that does a lot of this stuff, but those jobs shifted into other things. So I think that people do learn new skills and we need to apply the value of people's disruption around the globe. There's been elections all around the world in 2024. There were 75 different countries.

Neil Milliken: 22:07

I think that we're trying to continue communities online. It's tricky, you know. Changes to the algorithm make it harder sometimes to be able to build those communities and have those conversations, but I think, as you say, it behooves upon us to be able to continue doing this work, to continue making the effort. You know you're highly prolific on social media, you know, and I love the fact that you're out there. You're spreading the good stories and, yes, I'm very happy for us to plug great books. By the way, this is something that we all ought to do for each other, and you do it for us, we do it for you, and that builds a community and that's really about the best that you can have on social media and I think that there's definitely an upside to social media. We ought not to say that everything is terrible. We know there have been impacts. It's been used for purposes that are not for the good of the whole of society, but you can use it for the good of society.

Judge Ginger Lerner-Wren: 23:45

And if you want to do good, there are ways.

Judge Ginger Lerner-Wren: 23:46

You know that being, you know being on social media and being able to connect with individuals internationally and then getting invited, let's say, to go and speak in different countries, for example, that may not understand, for example, what is a problem-solving court right? What is therapeutic justice? What does it look like? What does it feel like? Do it and to be able to teach in this regard and then watch, you know, as you plant seeds so other jurisdictions around the world could go ahead and implement these innovations correct in the law that are so important, that really really help people not necessarily punish people that recognizing that the law could be an agent, that judges could be an agent correct of healing and well-being and in that regard, we are promoting peace through our work, that judges and lawyers can be peacekeepers.

Judge Ginger Lerner-Wren: 24:46

So I think it's so important to be able to, you know, enjoy the relationships that we make on social media and, you know, sometimes it feels like, oh, should I get on? You know I'm tired, I don't feel like it, but and that's fine, you can. You know when you need a break. You need a break, but it's been so enriching for me. You need a break, but it's been so enriching for me and you know, since one of my dear friends, uh, said, you know, ginger, I, I think you'd really like this, and he was right.

Neil Milliken: 25:20

Yeah, I, I think there's there's a lot to like, and when it's working well and you're building communities and you're making those connections, it's it's. It's actually a wonderful thing, it's enjoyable. You get that sort of dopamine rush right, and as an ADHD, I need the dopamine rush, which is why it's so addictive. But I think and just going back to the thing about the young kids as well was that we are using this to connect with people, but it's very easy to open up social media and just start doom scrolling and then you don't have social connection. All you see is stuff being thrown at you, and so I think I understand why certain countries are considering banning social media for younger people. I don't necessarily think that that's the right thing to do. You need to teach them how to use technology. You can understand why they're doing it.

Antonio Santos: 26:15

But some of the more recent social networks that we know, they were built with different intentions. They were not built to interaction, for this kind of interaction. They were built for you to consume, for you to watch. They were not basically built for you to be, to have your voice. They were made for entertain, not for you to sing too much. So I think the fact that those were the networks that they would use while they were growing If there's not really someone there to help them to move into the path to other, different social networks or to show them different aspects of things that can be done through social networks, I think that has been one of the problems. I have kids, I have young people in the family and sometimes they struggle to understand some aspects of what I do and how I connect because they don't use networks with a different purpose and intention.

Neil Milliken: 27:11

Absolutely. They're consuming. The algorithm can pick up on your interest and it starts shoving that content into your face. If I click on something, then suddenly I'm being shown lots of pictures of vintage cars and, and so suddenly you know, my whole feed is full of vintage cars and, and that's how people get radicalized. So it's understandable why we now have this polarization. But we need to teach people life skills, and I think that you know the work that you've done on restorative justice, the work that you're doing on educating people, giving them skills and giving them a space, is super important. So we're delighted to always welcome you back on Access Chat, and our time has gone too quickly here. It really has. We didn't even say Deborah's missing this week because we had to move it forward because of Easter and she wasn't able to make it, but thank you, judge Wren, it's been an absolute pleasure, as always. We also need to thank Amazon and MyClearText for helping us stay on air and stay accessible, so thank you once again.

Judge Ginger Lerner-Wren: 28:21

Thank you so much again. It's beyond a joy to be back with you and I look forward to our international chat on Blue Sky. And you know, just thank you for having me. Thank you.