Women like to joke about the whole “man in uniform” thing but contrary to My Colleges and Careers usual style of reveling in the unimportant but interesting, we are going to take things a little deeper today. What does it mean to wear a uniform? Is there a certain power that comes with it? In a recent study participants were asked to rank 25 occupational uniforms by the feeling they elicited. Police uniforms consistently symbolized a feeling of safety to participants.
Interesting Facts about Police Uniforms (policeone.com)
In 1969, the police in Menlo Park, California dispensed with their traditional navy blue, paramilitary-style uniforms and adopted a nontraditional uniform in hopes of improving police community relations. The new, nontraditional uniform consisted of a forest green sport coat blazer worn over black slacks, a white shirt, and a black tie. The officer’’s badge was displayed on the blazer and the officer’’s weapons were concealed under the coat. Once word spread about Menlo Park’’s attempts, over 400 other police department in the United States also experimented with a blazer style uniform. In 1977, after wearing the blazer style uniform for 8 years, the Menlo Park Police Department realized that the sport coat uniform did not command respect and returned to a traditional, paramilitary-style uniform.
