Salt Lake City calls for help to solve ‘brokenness’ in crime, homeless services

SALT LAKE CITY — Leaders of Utah’s capital city have compiled dozens of recommendations for the state and the city after state officials called out policing “ineffectiveness” in a letter to the city last month.

Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall released the city’s official response to that letter on Thursday, a report highlighting criminal justice and homelessness reforms it would like to see as the state prepares to address the issue during the upcoming legislative session.

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“The system, as it exists today, is really not designed to create accountability or remedy the services for this population, so we see a cycling of people with many arrests,” Mendenhall told the KSL and Deseret News editorial boards on Wednesday before releasing the report. “It’s not one part of the system’s fault. It is a system as a whole that has to be changed.”

The document leads with several “guiding principles,” such as a call for better resource service access, while people will be held accountable for criminal actions and public spaces will be “safe, clean and welcoming to all law-abiding people.”

However, it also outlines increased officer presence from bike and foot patrol downtown and other areas, like the Ballpark neighborhood and areas along the Jordan River, as well as a special team that will focus on drug and gun issues in the city. The city also plans to increase prosecution proposals, including enhanced penalties for repeat offenders and better data tracking to identify repeat offenders through the “targeted initiative,” the mayor said.

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