As part of an ongoing effort to bring more diversity to their ranks, the Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Office is seeking more female and minority recruits for their newest class of cadets.
Currently, the class is about a third of the way through their training and are set to become full-fledged law enforcement officers when the class wraps up over the next two months. Of the 22 members in the class, over a quarter of them are people of color and/or female.
Moving forward, the Unified Police Department and other agencies are seeking to keep diversity going by bringing more of it into their ranks. Cadets from the Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Academy class number 35 say they are willing to take on the challenge of bringing about more diversity into the agency.
Cadet Leslie Lopez says that she wanted to work within this career believing that if she wanted to see change, she had to be part of it. Samuelo Aiono, another cadet, says that he is the first of his Polynesian side of the family to join law-enforcement.
When the class concludes, about two thirds of the cadets will work in the Salt Lake County jail and the rest will continue working to become public safety deputies.