[T]he Vermont State Police is doing away with a rule barring troopers from having lower arm tattoos as part of an effort to increase recruitment.
Effective July 1 troopers with arm tattoos can be hired, according to Capt. Julie Scribner, state police staff operations commander.
New members will still have to cover their arms while on duty with department-provided fabric sleeves if they have arm tattoos that would be visible in their uniform shirts, Scribner said.
Before the change, trooper applicants with visible arm tattoos would not be considered for the job unless they removed the tattoos.
“With this change we can now attract recruits from a much wider pool of qualified applicants,” Scribner said.
She said the agency looks to hire between 15 and 20 new troopers for each of the two training sessions that take place every year.
“We’ve been struggling to reach that number of qualified applicants,” Scribner said. “We didn’t want to lower our standards, so we started looking at what changes we can make.”
And, she said, the tattoo policy was brought up as one that could use updating.
“Our policy has evolved and undergone changes over the years,” Scribner added. “Now, we’re just becoming more progressive to current trends in society.”
The policy still prohibits any kind of tattoo indicating an extremist, sexist, or racist ideology or affiliation.
Also, tattoos on a person’s face, neck and hands are prohibited, though there is an exception for commitment band tattoos on ring fingers.
Current troopers can also now get tattoos on their lower arms, provided those tattoos are also covered by the department-issued fabric when the tattoo may be visible.
Rutland City Police Commander Matthew Prouty said he was disappointed that state police was changing its policy.
That’s because qualified candidates with tattoos who were rejected by that agency because of their ink were applying to other law enforcement agencies, including Rutland City, where no such prohibition existed.
“We were getting people applying to us because they couldn’t go to the state police,” Prouty said.
He said the Rutland City Police Department does not have a tattoo policy and he’s not aware of it ever creating a problem.
“Grandma’s got one, everybody’s got one,” Prouty said of tattoos.
Some members of the department, he said, have a “full sleeve,” or tattoos along the entire length of their arm.
“It’s a conversation piece for a lot of guys out on patrol,” he said.
“I’ve seen it happen where a lot of people would prefer to talk to the officer with all the tattoos,” Prouty said. “There’s just something human about it.”
Barre City Police Chief Tim Bombardier said his department does have officers with tattoos and has no written policy on where they can be located.
“The one hard and fast rule that I have is, no hate. It’s usually a conversation that I’ve had with people before I hired them,” he said. “If you have a hate tattoo of any kind you’re not going to get hired by me.”
In the past, the police chief said, he has asked officers with tattoos on their lower arms to wear long sleeves during the summer. But recently, he said, he tried a change with one officer with tattoos on his lower arms and allowed him to wear a short-sleeve uniform shirt.
The police chief said there was no response one way or the other from the public.
“Sometimes we prep ourselves and think the public is going to say something and they don’t,” he said. “It’s really been a non-issue.”
One officer Bombardier hired who turned into a valuable member of the force had previously been rejected by the Vermont State Police because of visible tattoos on his lower arms, he said.
“If you have strict no tattoo policy you are going to miss out on a lot of good candidates,” the police chief said.
Rick Gauthier, executive director of the Vermont Criminal Justice Training Council which oversees the Vermont Police Academy, said he wasn’t sure how many law enforcement agencies have policies regarding tattoos.
“I can only tell you what see here,” he said of new recruits. “My sense of it is that tattoo acceptance has been relaxed pretty considerably.”
Jessica Deyo a tattoo artist with Aartistic Inc., which has shops in Montpelier and Winooski, said she recently became aware of the change in state police policy, and was happy to hear the news.
“We definitely have a clientele that are officers so we’re always up for doing more tattoos,” she said.
Deyo said the lower arm is a popular place for people to get tattoos for display purposes as well as, for many, it’s a less painful location.
The state police policy change, she added, shows that tattoos are becoming mainstream.
“It’s becoming widely more acceptable now in all career fields,” Deyo said.
Scribner, of the Vermont State Police, said she has already heard from a couple of troopers on the force who have told her they now intend to get tattoos on their lower arms.
“And,” she said, “I’m sure there are plenty others out there who I haven’t spoken to who are planning to get tattoos.”
