Three City Council committees will take up tonight a proposed ordinance to improve communications between the Springfield Police Department and residents who don’t speak English.
The meeting of the Veterans, Administration and Human Services, Public Health and Safety, and Civil Rights and Race Relations committees begins at 6:30 p.m. at City Hall. Police Commissioner William Fitchet is expected to attend.
The language-access ordinance is proposed by the Pioneer Valley Project, which is calling for improved services for non-English speakers, including bilingual interpreters and translated documents. (According to 2000 federal Census data, 20 percent of city residents speak a language other than English at home, and 41 percent of that group reports that they don’t speak English “very well.”)
In particular, PVP has expressed concern over communication between police and residents during emergency situations, such as calls to 911, as well as concerns about how well police can respond to calls when witnesses or victims don’t speak English. Supporters also say the changes would protect police, and make it easier for them to do their jobs.
SPD officials say the department has services in place, including translation services available to 911 dispatch center workers and cops on the street. This summer, Sgt. John Delaney, a department spokesman, told the Advocate that he doesn’t consider language access “a glaring problem” in the SPD, given the services already available. “Law enforcement and criminal justice and protecting the citizens—it’s not an exact science,” Delaney said. “There are glitches in the system. As cops, we learn to adapt. If I go to a call and there is a language barrier, I have so many utensils and tools that the job gets done.”
But supporters of the ordinance say the existing system isn’t working as it should, making a clearly defined system necessary. “This ordinance, as it will be drafted, is a clear first step— how to make translations, when necessary, more accessible, more readily available,” ACLU attorney Bill Newman told the Advocate. “Because what these stories [gathered by PVP] show is that there’s a system that exists, but it’s not really responsive.”
