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Date: 7/5/2023
BELCHERTOWN — Police Chief Kevin Pacunas announced that the Belchertown Police Department was awarded state accreditation from the Massachusetts Police Accreditation Commission on June 21.
An extensive peer review was conducted by the commission’s assessment team from Jan. 24-26.
Pacunas said, “It feels great because what it means is we are doing what is considered the best practice in our industry. We are doing things the best way you can do them. We have policies that tell us to do them the best way and we are also following through and doing them the best way.”
Pacunas added that the Belchertown Police Department one of only eight departments in all Western Massachusetts that has this status.
“It a very prestigious, sought after award. There are over a hundred departments in Western Massachusetts, and we are one of eight that credited, so we are proud of that,” he added.
During the review process, the assessors examined the department’s policies, procedures, operations, staffing, equipment, and facility maintenance to ensure compliance with the Accreditation Commission’s standards.
The Belchertown Police Department successfully met all 257 mandatory standards and surpassed the required optional standards.
Pacunas thinks that meeting those standards comes easier because it has a lot to do with the staff in Belchertown.
He said, “I think we do a good job with all of them. The commission actually did not find any deficiencies in our department. Usually, they find one or two things that you can do better or that you can fix and honestly this time they did not find one deficiency within our department. That’s credit to the people that work here, the police, the dispatchers and everybody.”
The state accreditation status means the town’s police force has excelled with its written policy and procedures, abides by best police practices, including how they recruit, hire and train new officers, maintain their facilities and vehicles in good order and strives to correct deficiencies right away.
To maintain state accreditation, the assessment team will verify every three years that the Belchertown Police Department continues to meet the commission’s standards.
The department was first accredited in 2020.
Pacunas added that Sgt. Jared Lavalle also serves as the accreditation manager for the department and had a lot to do with achieving the status again.
Pacunas said, “While this is a team effort and everybody here is responsible for us being accredited, he’s the one who really got us over the hump. He’s in charge of it, he’s the one that makes sure we are in compliance with everything, so without him we wouldn’t have been reaccredited. He did an outstanding job.”