The mission of the Salt Lake City Police Department outlines the specific ways each employee will work to achieve the vision of the department for the city and its residents and visitors.

VISION STATEMENT

The vision statement articulates the beliefs and values of the Police Department and defines the ultimate goal and what all employees will work to achieve.

“We will build upon the noble traditions of integrity and trust to foster a culture of service, respect, and compassion toward our employees and the communities we serve.”

MISSION STATEMENT

The mission of the Salt Lake City Police Department outlines the specific ways each employee will work to achieve the vision of the department for the city and its residents and visitors.

“We will serve as guardians of our community to preserve life, maintain human rights, protect property, and promote individual responsibility and community commitment.”

ACHIEVING THE GOALS OF THE VISION AND MISSION STATEMENT

Upholding the vision of the Department can only be achieved by using the mission statement to guide all work and strategies, while focusing on dedicated commitment and solidarity of purpose in Department activities and community involvement.

Commitment to:

  • Provide high-quality, community-supported police services with sensitivity
  • Protecting constitutional rights
  • Problem solving
  • Teamwork within the department and with community
  • Long-range planning
  • Providing leadership for the police profession
  • Community-supported policing and problem-solving principles
  • Interpersonal and communication skills
  • Bias awareness
  • Scenario-based, situational decision making
  • Crisis intervention and Procedural justice and impartial policing
  • Trauma and victim services
  • Mental health issues
  • Analytical research and technology
  • Languages and cultural responsiveness

Employees shall work to accomplish the vision and mission of the Department, provide wise leadership, and embody the core values. Employees are to work with citizens, preserve life, maintain human rights, and promote individual responsibility. Officers shall preserve the public peace, detect and arrest offenders, prevent crime, protect life and property, and enforce the ordinances and statutes of Salt Lake City, the State of Utah, and the United States.

LEADERSHIP

The principles of leadership for the Salt Lake City Police Department are to:

  • Believe in, foster, and support teamwork
  • Be committed to the problem solving process; use it and let facts, not emotions, drive decisions
  • When possible, seek employees’ input before making key decisions
  • Believe that the best way to improve the quality of work or service is to ask and listen to the employees promptly and fairly
  • Strive to develop mutual respect and trust with employees
  • Have a service orientation with a focus toward employees and citizens
  • Manage on the behavior of most employees, not on the few who cause problems; deal with all employees promptly and fairly
  • Encourage creativity through risk taking, while continuing to improve systems and examine process upgrades
  • Be a facilitator and coach. Develop an open atmosphere that encourages both providing and accepting feedback
  • Apply team-work, develop with employees agreed-upon goals and plans to achieve them
CORE VALUES
CHARACTER

The moral qualities distinctive to an individual. Foundational pillars of character are integrity, reverence for the law, and respect for individuals.

COMPASSION

Caring and respect with sensitivity and empathy. Compassionate service is essential to human relationships and indispensable to the foundation of a just and peaceful community.

COMMITMENT TO THE COMMUNITY

A promise to be a loyal partner with the community. Uphold our responsibility to be responsive to community needs and implement solutions that produce meaningful results.

COMMUNICATION

Honest and transparent dialogue with the community. Professional representation, dignity in our speech, and truthfulness in our interactions establish trust and legitimacy. Communication creates an environment that encourages authentic conversations about hard issues that impact the community.

COURAGE

Guardian and protector of the community in the face of personal sacrifice. The quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to face difficulty, danger, or pain. Organizational and individual courage to do the right thing and be held to a high standard and show the strength to stand up for those we serve.

STRATEGIC PLAN

This Strategic Plan lays out a path that assesses where we are today, where we plan to go, and how we deliver tangible action and results through 2022.

Preview and download the 2017 Strategic Plan here.
"I (name) do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support, obey, and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Utah, and that I will discharge the duties of my office with fidelity."

Corporate Social Responsibility

Salt Lake City Police Department is committed to giving back to the community in unique and innovative ways beyond our day-to-day service.

We are always looking to improve on our responsibility to the community and encourage collaboration across abroad spectrum.

SDG 3: Good Health and Well-Being

Good Health and Wellbeing

Ensuring healthy lives and promoting the well-being at all ages is essential to sustainable development. The Salt Lake City Police Department has several programs that deal with officer wellness, including a robust Peer Support Program and other employee programs as well as Police Chaplains. There are many additional resources, such as the employee assistance program, which provides employees and family members with psychological and counseling assistance, and a military peer support group, which assists employees during and after military deployments. Other benefits also include access to comprehensive health coverage, access to quality essential health-care services and access to safe, effective, quality and affordable essential medicines and vaccines for all.
In addition to formal programs, the Department employees have access to fitness time and on-sight gyms. The unique layout of the gym at the Public Safety Building includes state-of-the-art equipment, an open locker area, and individual changing rooms. This was a deliberate design to accommodate all genders and orientations in an equal way, which reduces inequalities and increases opportunities (SDG 5 and 10). A newly-renovated gym is also located at the Pioneer Precinct and has just been updated with new equipment and interior finish. Finally, an open work-out area at an older building houses cross fit equipment and is great for training and fitness classes.
The Department also works diligently to provide options for good health and well-being to the community it serves, particularly those who suffer from substance use disorder and mental health issues. The Co-Responder model created by SLCPD social workers, crisis intervention teams, and police officers provides criminal justice diversion. Co-Response consists of two-person teams comprised of a law enforcement officer and a behavioral health specialist to intervene on mental health-related police calls to de-escalate situations that have historically resulted in arrest and to assess whether the person should be referred for an immediate behavioral health assessment. They also help provide warm hand-offs of individuals to treatment beds, shelters, and other diversion programs that help strengthen the prevention and treatment of substances, including narcotic drug use and harmful use of alcohol.

SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth

Decent Work and Economic GrowthSustainable economic growth will require societies to create the conditions that allow people to have quality jobs that stimulate the economy while not harming the environment. Over the last few years, Salt Lake City has seen unprecedented growth in business, residents, and tourism. The Salt Lake City Police Department is no exception. Each year, we have increased the number of employees and received pay increases. The work is honest and provides great benefits, opportunities for growth and advancement, and a sense of community with coworkers and those we serve.
Over the last two years, we have increased the number of applicants in our recruiting and hiring processes and continue to improve the process for obtaining work within the Department. We provide a mentoring program for applicants who have passed the first step of the process and work closely with the hiring team to onboard officers and civilians in a holistic way. Through Funding Our Future, Salt Lake City has promoted development-oriented policies that support productive activities, decent job creation, entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation, and encourage the formalization and growth of micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises, including the growth of the police department.
The Department Recruiting Plan outlines goas to achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all women and men, including for young people and persons with disabilities, and equal pay for work of equal value. Strong recruitment efforts are made to reach minority populations and to fill unique roles within the Department, such as forensics, records, and victim advocates, as well as recruit interns year-round.
Hiring Graph

SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities

Sustainable Cities and Communities

Cities are hubs for ideas, commerce, culture, science, productivity, social development and much more. At their best, cities have enabled people to advance socially and economically. There needs to be a future in which cities provide opportunities for all, with access to basic services, energy, housing, transportation and more. The Salt Lake City Police Department provides compassionate attention to the community needed to support the growth, inclusion, and sustainment of the City and its communities.
SLCPD also provides the underpinned presence throughout the City, which provides access to safe, inclusive and accessible, green and public spaces, in particular for women, children, older persons, and persons with disabilities. We strive to make Salt Lake City accessible and safe for all residents and visitors. Together with the other Departments within the City, SLCPD supports the overall safety needed to improve transportation, urbanization, and thriving livability of the capital city.

SDG 16: Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions

Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions

The threats of international homicide, violence against children, human trafficking and sexual violence are important to address to promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development. They pave the way for the provision of access to justice for all and for building effective, accountable institutions at all levels. The Salt Lake City Police Department will serve as guardians of our community to preserve life, maintain human rights, protect property, and promote individual responsibility and community commitment.
Crime and public safety are community issues. Therefore, the community and the police must work together with solidarity of purpose to solve them with unilateral responsibility and participation. Citizens, the Police Department, other agencies and City government are equally responsible to help reshape this mission and advance in demonstrable steps. Each entity must be willing to work together, to become involved, to take initiative and to cooperate with each other to help make the City more enjoyable and safer for all, unilaterally raising the bar over time for the community as a whole.
Community-supported policing is the heart of this direction and plan and is a durable platform for sustained action. Each member of the Salt Lake City Police Department is responsible for achieving its mission, owning the outcome and providing consideration for unique circumstances. Likewise, the community, in solidarity and shared vision, has a stake in the outcome, provides bottom-up contributions, and shares responsibility for making this City both safer and more enjoyable.
SLCPD spends considerable time, effort, and resources to help end abuse, exploitation, and trafficking. The Department function in a transparent manner and ensures responsive, inclusive, participatory and representative decision-making at all levels. Above all, we believe in fair and impartial policing, promote and enforce non-discriminatory laws, and promote the rule of law for all.

In November 2009, more than 65% of Salt Lake City voters approved a $125 million general obligation bond to fund the construction of a new Public Safety Building. The facility, which includes a 911 dispatch center and an Emergency Operations Center, serves Salt Lake City residents, visitors and businesses of Utah’s Capital City. The project was completed in 2013.

The Public Safety Building frames views of the Wasatch Mountains to the east and is a pedestrian friendly development. The building is designed to fit the definition of a Net Zero Energy Emissions building. This means that the building produces at least as much emissions-free renewable energy as it would otherwise consume if obtained from emissions-producing energy sources. Net Zero Energy was achieved by dramatically reducing building energy use and utilizing renewable energy. Energy use reduction is accomplished with high efficiency building and systems design, building operations, and occupant energy management strategies. Renewable energy is produced by photovoltaic and solar thermal arrays. Additionally, the PSB was awarded LEED Platinum status by the U.S. Green Building Council.

The Salt Lake City Police Department will accept old or unused prescription drugs in the receptacle in the lobby of the Public Safety Building.

Lobby hours: Monday-Friday, 8 a.m. – 5 p.m.; closed Holidays.

Community-Supported Policing Philosophy

Crime and public safety are community issues. Therefore, the community and the police must work together with solidarity of purpose to solve them with unilateral responsibility and participation.

Citizens, the Police Department, other agencies and City government are equally responsible to help reshape this mission and advance in demonstrable steps. Each entity must be willing to work together, to become involved, to take initiative and to cooperate with each other to help make the City more enjoyable and safer for all, unilaterally raising the bar over time for the community as a whole.

Community-Supported Policing is the heart of this direction and plan and is a durable platform for sustained action. Each member of the Salt Lake City Police Department is responsible for achieving its mission, owning the outcome and providing consideration for unique circumstances. Likewise, the community, in solidarity and shared vision, has a stake in the outcome, provides bottom-up contributions, and shares responsibility for making this City both safer and more enjoyable.

How members of the department define their role will set the tone for the community.

How members of the department define their role will set the tone for the community.

Meet Our Executive Team

Click on the links below to learn more about SLCPD’s Executive Staff and their areas of responsibility.

Mike Brown

Police Chief


Andrew Wright

Deputy Chief


Victor Siebeneck

Deputy Chief


Scott Mourtgos

Deputy Chief


Lance VanDongen

Deputy Chief