Powering-Up Communication

While larger police departments often offer language training and actively recruit bilingual officers (about 45 percent of the LAPD's 10,000 officers speak Spanish), many officers rely on translation sheets that they carry or on language phone lines—so-called "dial-a-translator" services that charge by the minute. The Phraselator, which starts at $2,500 per unit and can be programmed with virtually any language, is comparatively cost-effective, some law enforcement officials say. Capt. Tom Eberhardt, assistant commander of the correctional services division for Lee County, Fla., uses it for booking, processing and understanding medical issues of those among the 2,400 inmates in his charge who understand Spanish or Creole far better than English. Eberhardt, who says only 75 of his 1,400 correctional officers speak another language, bought several units and has programmed them with about 165 phrases. For basic essential communication, "it saves money," he says, adding, however, that the device "is not really made to replace an interpreter."

The Phraselator offers only one-way communication, meaning respondents must answer simply—with a yes or no or by nodding their heads. "Handheld devices are good in terms of immediate access to a means of communication, but it can also be problematic, because they don't allow different variations, and context can be really limited," says Armando Valles, assistant director of the National Center for Interpretation at the University of Arizona.

So far, says Voxtec's Millis, the Phraselator has been used by law enforcement primarily for crowd control, but some departments are now starting to test it in patrol situations. Other applications are on the horizon as well. The company is working with several Native American tribes to apply the technology to preservation of their languages and is also working with emergency service providers to use Phraselators with medical assistance and evacuation orders during natural disasters like earthquakes, floods and wildfires. And next time a rally winds its way through the streets of Los Angeles's diverse downtown area, Capt. Kato is ready. His Phraselators, he says, can speak Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, Korean and Japanese.

© 2007