Limited English Proficiency Initiative

About the Program

Category: Criminal Justice and Public Safety (Best in Category)

Year: 2011

Across the nation, suburban law enforcement agencies are facing the rapidly growing, universal challenge of communicating with non-0English speaking individuals during both routine contacts and emergency operations. At first glance, the simple answer to this challenge might involve hiring bilingual police officers or training existing officers to speak other languages fluently, but notwithstanding collective bargaining agreements, federal mandates, and restrictive civil service statutes, the majority of law-enforcement agencies are not in the position to expand their agency’s size, but are instead looking to downsize due to arduous financial constraints. To address this issue head-on, the Suffolk County Police Department has developed and implemented a dynamic, comprehensive Limited English Proficiency Initiative. This initiative is multifaceted and involves critical phase Spanish-language training for current officers in a variety of formats. Mandatory Spanish-language training with proficiency testing was established for new police officers, dual-handset translator telephones were deployed at every public facility and investigative unit, special cellular telephones that automatically connect to a translator service were deployed in police cars, and competitive bilingual entrance examinations for new police officers and civilian employees were established, in addition to a variety of other innovative measures, many incorporating efforts to accommodate the many other languages spoken by the county’s constituents,