ABSTRACT
Increasingly more and more police activities involve the engagement of interpreters and translators to overcome language barriers that emerge during what are normally routine activities. e most common activities are police interviews with suspects, taking statements from witnesses or victims and translating evidence such as telephone intercepts or transcripts. Section 9.5.2 of the Adequacy of Interpretation in the Victorian Criminal Proceedings Manual by the Judicial College of Victoria, Australia, where judges and magistrates are trained, states that
Laster and Taylor (1994) assert that, in police activities where there are language barriers, interpreters and translators make policing more ecient and may prevent important evidence being excluded because it is considered unreliable. is is especially important during police cautions in Australia and the United Kingdom, or the Miranda Warning in the United States, when a suspect is told his or her rights, especially the right to a lawyer and the right to silence. Although, ideally, interpreters and
translators will work in these settings as neutral facilitators of communication, involvement of interpreters and translators will inevitably change the dynamics. It will never be the same as two people communicating directly in the same language, as physically there is someone else in the setting. e involvement of a third person will inevitably give rise to issues that would not be a part of a direct communication. Some of the issues arising from these dynamics will also inevitably involve ethical issues that must be dealt with by professional interpreters and translators because of the unique position they hold in the setting. is chapter discusses professional ethics and code of conduct issues for interpreters and translators in police activities and uses case studies to illustrate the points of contention. e authors also try to oer guidance that may be of assistance to professional translators and interpreters and to police ocers who have to work through them.
