Justin Gest reports in the Guardian on a new program, designed to “improve officers’ cultural sensitivity and relations with local Muslims,” in which Yorkshire bobbies traded in their standard issue for traditional Islamic dress:
Police officers represent the point where government policy and discourse impact affected parties—where the rubber hits the road. In this way, they are collective ambassadors of the British legal system and public sphere. Officers have the power to determine individuals’ perceptions of how just, equal and well-intentioned public policy is.
[…]An awareness of British Muslims [sic] counter-paranoia to the British government’s paranoia about terrorism should not stop the government’s preventative policies, but it should inform their creation and implementation. And I believe it will in South Yorkshire.
Read the full article here.