Fifty-nine men and women graduated Friday from the Denver Sheriff’s Department academy, putting the department closer to its goal of adding 200 new deputies this year.
The class was the second in 2016, and a third class is scheduled to begin in December.
“The aim this year was to try to get 200 through the academy and it looks like we’re going to get somewhere near there,” said Simon Crittle, a sheriff’s department spokesman.
The city decided to build the department’s ranks to relieve staffing shortages and to embrace a culture change where deputies are asked be guardian instead of warriors. The recruits are part of an at the department.
Before working on their own inside Denver’s two jails, the new deputies will spend a week meeting people from various cultural groups so they better understand who is inside Denver’s jails. They then spend a month shadowing a field training officer.
