Chaplain Expansion

So, the LAPD hired its first Muslim chaplain (that's him featured below, in an artsy Los Angeles Times photo).


New York is way ahead of this trend. The Big Apple began hiring Muslim chaplains after the Attica riots upstate in the 1970s.

Muslim inmates at the Attica State prison not only served as intermediaries between the prisoners and the outside world, but they also protected the Corrections Officers held hostage inside the prison's walls.

In return, New York state - recognizing the need for prisoner recourse - began hiring Muslim Chaplains.

This is despite the fact that Muslims in prison had won recognition through the courts by leading the prisoner's rights movement of the 1960s. The prisoner's rights movement in prison was to Muslims (and more specifically African American Muslims) what the Civil Rights movement was to Black community in America.

Update..... Latif is featured in The National. Read the story here.