Lincolnshire is a large county in the Midlands of England. One might wonder, like one of the candidates vying for election as the county's Police and Crime Commissioner, Marc Jones, why the police in this largely rural county might need to spend over $500,000 on translating services. These are not German translators or French translators but mostly translators who can interpret and translate languages spoken by some of Britain's most recent immigrants including those from Eritrea, Somalia and the Philippines.
When contacted by media representatives, a spokeswoman from the Lincolnshire Police, Deputy Chief Constable, Heather Roach, said that the county had become more diverse over the last decade and there was a need to be able to communicate with victims, offenders and witnesses who could not speak or understand English well enough. She went on to say that the police force regretted the amount of money being spent but thought that it was unavoidable in this era.
Marc Jones had made the comment about the expense of translating and interpreting services being astronomical and suggested that he might set different priorities if he won the position of Police and Crime Commissioner. He said that the Lincolnshire force had already overspent far too much on legal help to remove a former Police Commissioner.
Presumably, whatever Mr. Jones thinks about one specific government agency, this trend towards an increasing need for translation and interpretation services in many areas of life is something being experienced all over Europe where there has been a surge in immigration recently. Germany is one of those European nations that has chosen to take in many immigrants during the Syrian Civil War crisis and it can only be guessed how many German translation services will be asked to provide help to communicate with these immigrants.
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