Penn State Berks 2024 alumna Angela Bonopane earned the Greatest Undergraduate Analysis Paper Award from the Pennsylvania Academy of Legal Justice Educators (PACJE) — a statewide group of school, practitioners and college students in felony justice. She additionally obtained the PACJE Bernie Meyer Scholar Scholarship and introduced her analysis on the convention.
Bonopane, a felony justice main with a minor in sociology from Mount Bethel, Pennsylvania, received for her paper titled, “Police views on overdose responses: Advancing preventative methods,” which examines native police chiefs’ insurance policies on naloxone coaching and use and their perceptions of regulation enforcements’ position in responding to overdose calls.
Her curiosity on this space of analysis stems from her coursework and her unbiased analysis with Jennifer Murphy, affiliate professor of felony justice, the place they examined totally different hurt discount methods and the way cops perceived their sensible implementations. Moreover, Bonopane has witnessed the influence of drug use.
As a part of her analysis strategies, Bonopane interviewed police chiefs about overdose calls, naloxone carrying insurance policies inside departments, and attitudes in the direction of naloxone as a hurt discount technique. From there, she analyzed the transcriptions of the interviews to search for recurring themes within the chiefs’ solutions.
“My outcomes revealed that rapid overdose procedures carefully resemble each other when it comes to carrying and administering naloxone all through police departments included on this examine. Chiefs shared the view that naloxone is a crucial useful resource for implementing hurt discount methods/insurance policies, however they’re nonetheless restricted of their talents to help people following a profitable overdose reversal,” Bonopane stated.
Nevertheless, on condition that many overdose victims can refuse remedy after an overdose and are shielded from many authorized repercussions, officers’ unsuccessful efforts to divert them into remedy has led to a way of burnout. Due to this fact, extra coaching on utilizing evidence-based methods for successfully persuading people to hunt drug remedy might assist to scale back officers’ limitations.”
Bonopane credit the school at Penn State Berks for serving to her succeed.
“Penn State Berks set me up for fulfillment, notably by way of the school members who make investments their time of their college students’ training and futures. I transferred to Penn State Berks as a 2+2 scholar and inside my first semester, I used to be provided a scholar analysis place, uncovered to a number of future internship alternatives, and given ample networking alternatives,” she stated.
As for her future profession, she stated she needs to ascertain and prioritize efficient strategies of addressing the opioid epidemic.
“Within the subject of substance use prevention and remedy, many present practices lack a basis that’s supported by scientific proof and are very restricted of their constructive results,” Bonopane stated. “As such, I wish to be sure that all my skilled practices are evidence-based to assist the most individuals.”
Bonopane plans to pursue her grasp’s diploma in medical social work at Temple College in 2025. She needs to help veterans fighting substance use dysfunction by way of the Veteran’s Affiliation upon acquiring her licensure. Presently, Bonopane works as a case supervisor at a re-entry service heart for previously incarcerated people.
