{"id":30102,"date":"2023-02-13T10:27:07","date_gmt":"2023-02-13T15:27:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=30102"},"modified":"2023-02-13T10:27:14","modified_gmt":"2023-02-13T15:27:14","slug":"lakeland-pd-to-relax-tattoo-policy-to-aid-in-recruitment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2023\/02\/13\/lakeland-pd-to-relax-tattoo-policy-to-aid-in-recruitment\/","title":{"rendered":"<strong>Lakeland PD to relax tattoo policy to aid in recruitment<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Lakeland Police Chief Sam Taylor said he intends to loosen the department&#8217;s current policies on tattoos in hopes of recruiting more officers for the department<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 940px) 100vw, 940px\" src=\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/1x1_S.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-30103\" width=\"409\" height=\"409\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/1x1_S.jpg 940w, https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/1x1_S-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/1x1_S-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/1x1_S-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/1x1_S-250x250.jpg 250w\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Leah Hanson and Eduardo Pi\u00f1eda Courtesy of the Austin Police Department<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One of the more common questions LPD receives from potential new recruits is about the department&#8217;s tattoo and beard policies, according to the chief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;I don&#8217;t understand it, but it&#8217;s important to these younger folks,&#8221; Taylor said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Under LPD&#8217;s current policies, officers are prohibited from displaying a tattoo that covers 50% or more of their arm. The department&#8217;s policy defines this as the area from the edge of their uniform sleeve falls to their wrist. Any continuous tattoo that runs the length of the person&#8217;s arm is also prohibited even if covers less than half the arm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Any officer with such a tattoo, commonly called a full sleeve, must wear a long-sleeve uniform shirt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;I think we have missed out on some folks in the past because of our tattoo policy,&#8221; the chief said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Taylor said he plans to eliminate the department&#8217;s restrictions on arm tattoos but will uphold regulations that prevent officers from having tattoos on their face, neck, or hands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lakeland Police Chief Sam Taylor said he intends to loosen the department&#8217;s current policies on tattoos in hopes of recruiting more officers for the department One of the more common&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30103,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[4529],"class_list":["post-30102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","tag-lakeland-pd-to-relax-tattoo-policy-to-aid-in-recruitment"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30102\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}