SLCPD Provides Information About Response Times

SALT LAKE CITY — Today, the Salt Lake City Police Department, and Chief Mike Brown, provided information about the department’s response times.

The women and men of the Salt Lake City Police Department work every day to meet the expectations of our community. When someone needs help, our department strives to be there for that person as quickly and as safely as possible.

A police department’s response time can be calculated two ways – the cumulative response time and the actual drive-time response after the first available officer is dispatched to a scene.

The clock for cumulative response time starts when someone connects with SLC911 and ends when the first Salt Lake City Police officer arrives on scene. This calculation includes the time it takes for a 9-1-1 call taker to obtain information, process all available information, gather additional information if needed, and then dispatch the call for service to the first available officer.

The drive-time response starts when SLC911 dispatches the call for service to the first available officer. This calculation only shows the time it took an officer to respond to a location after being dispatched.

Many factors go into both types of response times, including, but not limited to, overall staffing, the number of available officers when a call is dispatched, the time of day as our city experiences an influx of working individuals during business hours, other calls for service being handled, and the distance an officer must travel.

As shown in the attached exhibits, the Salt Lake City Police Department’s goal for drive-time response has remained the same since Fiscal Year 2017.

Goal: Maintain a six (6) minute or better response time for Priority 1 calls for service from time of dispatch

(Drive-time)

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

2021

Response Time:

5:42

5:53

6:08

6:00

6:19

6:02

5:50

6:00

The Salt Lake City Police Department is a transparent law enforcement agency that prides itself on providing our community with accurate information about the services it provides. On our website, we provide monthly updates to the cumulative response time. Chief Mike Brown has consistently said his goal for the department is to have a cumulative response time to Priority 1 calls for service to be under 10 minutes.

The Salt Lake City Police Department continues to hire more officers, implement new strategies that will lower crime and develop and launch new programs that will help to improve the department’s response times.

No matter the number on paper – our goal as a police department is to get to every call as quickly and as safely as possible. That is our commitment to our community.

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