Dr. Ursula Castellano
Ursula Castellano, Associate Professor of Sociology at Ohio University, was quoted in a Philadelphia Inquirer story headlined “A panhandler punched a Chinese American woman and called her a slur. Will it be considered a hate crime?”
Úrsula Castellano, an Ohio University sociologist who studies mental-health courts, said that is almost a prototypical example of a person who could benefit from diversion into a mental-health treatment court. Participants tend to be housing insecure, and 70% have both mental-health and substance-dependency issues, she said.
“A person who is homeless and roused by police to move along, and they respond with anger or hostility — that is a person who is under a tremendous amount of stress with very few resources. So a typical response from the court would be prolonged treatment adjudicated by the judge, as opposed to 30 days of probation.”
Comments