The Linguist is a languages magazine for professional linguists, translators, interpreters, language professionals, language teachers, trainers, students and academics with articles on translation, interpreting, business, government, technology
Issue link: https://thelinguist.uberflip.com/i/988970
@Linguist_CIOL JUNE/JULY The Linguist 9 FEATURES provided that the situation is any better now. There is every likelihood that skilled interpreters, in a variety of languages, will be required more and more over the coming years. This is a national problem, but perhaps because of its proximity to the key Channel Ports, Kent is disproportionately affected." 5 Criminal justice across languages Interpreting and translation are provided in criminal justice settings in the UK so that suspects, victims and witnesses of crimes have access to justice, and police can conduct investigations effectively. The relevant legal protections and guarantees in the UK are mainly contained in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) 1984, and in Directive 2010/64/EU. As well as important aspects of human rights and effective evidence- gathering, these cover requirements for the detention, treatment and questioning of suspects; the requirement to explain a person's rights while detained; and the keeping of accurate criminal records, including visual and audio recordings of interviews. The context for the provision of language services in the public sector is in the throes of change in the UK. There have been issues with the outsourcing of interpreting and translation for the Ministry of Justice, and in the most recent round of outsourcing, the police and other agencies, such as the Crown Prosecution Service, Home Office and UK Border Force, were added. This means that large private- sector agencies, including thebigword and Cintra, are now responsible for providing linguists to the police and Home Office. Pioneering research The stakes are high, and the challenges are many and complex, given the increasingly diverse nature of our societies, with more than 300 languages spoken in the UK according to the 2011 census; the swift and ongoing evolution of transnational organised crime; the shifting framework for provision of language services; and other problems, not least severe recent cuts to police funding. Yet, astonishingly, until now, there has been no national training for police investigators in working with linguists. Some local provision exists, for example in the Metropolitan Police. But our changing world means that even areas with historically low or fixed patterns of migration, where only a few languages were spoken, are now far more linguistically varied. Training and support are needed by the police in all parts of the UK today. This need has been recognised by the police, Home Office and College of Policing, which is responsible for drawing up official police guidance and training nationally. In 2015, a successful joint event for linguists and police officers at Cambridgeshire Constabulary led to the establishment of a national Language Services Working Group to draw up draft guidance in working across languages. Researchers in interpreting and translation studies secured funding to support this work, and particularly to test the effectiveness of the guidance and training in practice. The main question of the TOCAT research project is: "How can police officers and interpreters/ translators work together effectively to understand, prevent and prosecute transnational organised crime when officers, suspects and witnesses don't speak the same language?". We have been working with the College of Policing, Home Office, Language Services Working Group, police partners in the UK and Belgium, professional organisations, and linguists to learn what guidance and training are needed to enable the police to work more effectively across languages. The draft Authorised Professional Practice (i.e. police guidance document) has been circulated for expert comment and revised substantially over the past two years; this work is ongoing. Simultaneously, the TOCAT research team has been observing trials of the associated training with a range of different Home Office and police settings. eeds to change in the way sed crime more effective ation practical approaches to understand, prevent and prosecute transnational organised crime. Operation Lakeland, a joint operation between police in Kent and Slovakia into the enslavement and sexual exploitation of children, shows how linguists play a critical and growing role. The victims were mainly from Slovakia and trafficked to the UK, though some were trafficked within the UK. The operation relied on police partners across the Czech Republic, Slovakia and the UK, the UK National Crime Agency, and local social services. But crucially, its success also depended on the effective coordination of dozens of interpreters and translators, to communicate with suspects, witnesses and vulnerable child victims during raids and evidence-gathering. The absence of coordinated linguistic support was later identified as one of the main factors in the failure of the operation and subsequent prosecution. The ensuing review highlighted the impact of the "lack of qualified interpreters available in Kent during the relevant time and there has been no evidence NEED TO KNOW Police raids against organised crime, such as this one in Belgium (right), demand secrecy, which creates difficulties for the linguists involved