As we look to the future of the Sarasota Police Department, providing training to all of our personnel is a key factor to ensuring our agency stays on the cutting edge of our industry.   We focus on encouraging and training our sworn and civilian personnel to rise through the ranks and become more involved in strategic decision making for the agency.  Our agency offers many opportunities within our agency to enhance the careers of our personnel.

Tuition Assistance
The Sarasota Police Department encourages our officers and civilian employees to enhance their careers through higher education in their respective fields.  The City of Sarasota will reimburse costs for any employee, sworn or civilian, who wishes to further their education in their career field at an eligible college or university.  Reimbursements are based on the employee’s final grade in the course.

Training Opportunities
The Sarasota Police Department encourages sworn and civilian personnel to enhance their career skills through outside training opportunities and memberships through organizations such as IPTM, FPCA, IACP, PERF, and the FBI-LEEDA. Specific trainings are also provided for those assigned to specialty units.

In-Service Training
The Sarasota Police Department works to ensure all officers are up to date on all law enforcement certifications and provide trainings to maintain such certifications.  In-person trainings are conducted twice per year as well as monthly computer trainings on law and state statute reviews.  In addition, we bring in trained professionals to educate sworn personnel on trending topics, such as implicit bias training for law enforcement and crisis intervention training.

Career Development
Once eligible, sworn personnel have the opportunity to join a variety of our specialty units and special response teams. 

Specialty units with career development positions include Foot Patrol, Community Action Team, Homeless Outreach Team, Traffic Unit, Marine Patrol Unit, Strategic Investigations Unit, and various positions in the Criminal Investigations Division. 

Special Response Teams include SWAT, Emergency Response Team, Crisis Negotiations Unit, Explosive Materials Unit, and Underwater Search and Recovery Unit (Dive Team). 

Leadership Development
In an effort to build our future leaders, the Sarasota Police Department's Leadership Institute was created in 2021.  This nine-month program encourages and develops sworn personnel to become future leaders within the agency.  These sessions cover internal policies, provide test taking strategies, and include presentations by community leaders from various well-known organizations. Any officers interested in promoting to supervisory ranks may attend these sessions.