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The Detroit Police Department has shed its old policy on facial hair, ushering in a new choice for officers: beards.
Police Chief James Craig said he didn't want to "keep something in place that really had ... no bearing on how good they would do their job," reports the Detroit Free Press.
The department previously banned beards and goatees, but allowed neatly trimmed mustaches. Officers who had a medical condition aggravated by shaving, though, could seek a shaving deferment, allowing them to grow beards and save their skin from razor bumps. But they weren't allowed to sculpt their beards along the hairline because "such removal would defeat the purpose of deferred shaving," according to a facial hair policy dated in 2009.
Under the new policy – which, according to a department teletype, took effect in July – officers can sport trimmed beards and goatees.
When it came to changes, Craig said he didn't stop with beards. He said female officers are now allowed to wear stud earrings on the job. That portion of the policy is not extended to male officers. Craig said in an interview last month that he hadn't been challenged on that, but "if a lot of people made enough noise I would certainly entertain it, I would discuss it."
Female officers can wear no more than one pair at a time and the earrings have to be gold, silver or black, according to the policy.
