The chair of the Association of Youth Offending Team Managers has banned staff at her Bournemouth Yot from wearing hooded tops or baseball caps to work.
Pauline Batstone’s decision to amend the Yot’s staff dress code followed the Prime Minister’s endorsement of Blue Water Shopping Centre’s ban on young people in hoods and baseball caps.
In an email to staff, Batstone said she appreciated the position of shopping centres who perceived hoods and caps as a uniform worn by gangs to identify themselves and avoid arrest, and understood why Blue Water had introduced the ban.
“To remove the possibility of any confusion and the possibility of frightening the neighbours, in future [Bournemouth] Yot staff will be banned from the office if they turn up wearing baseball caps and hoods and, thus attired, congregate in groups of more than two at any time,” Batstone told her staff.
