How is the PAS system perceived by the rank and file?
The Department involved the police employees’ unions from the onset. All sworn employees were also trained on PAS, and given access to their own PAS files (read-only). The system is considered transparent as there are no secrets in the data. Training was initially met with attitudes of pessimism, but quickly turned to attitudes of optimism after the fact. In post training surveys employees expressed an overall acceptance rate of over 90%. We found that granting this type of employee access allowed them to perform self interventions. Overall, this produces more effective compliance with Departmental policies. More recent training of supervisors, sergeants and lieutenants, in 2004 revealed some interesting information. After a three hour block of training on PAS, communications and coaching skills, 80% of the attending supervisors responded to a survey saying they felt a system like PAS should be introduced in other jurisdictions throughout the nation.
