question for San Diego LEO's

[ham]

I'm currently working on a degree on being a American Sign Language interpreter.

Do the departments have their own interpreters on staff or would I working for the city/county and be on assigned to a department when the need arises?

thanks for any info

[mixicus]

At the courts in OC, there are paid interpreters but I believe they are county employees not sheriff's employees. They could be made available to DA's or DA investigators but that is typically a business hours thing. I do not know what the mechanism is for a county employee to be 'loaned' out to a PD during an investigation.

I know of no full time positions for interpreters at PD's. Perhaps a large agency such as LAPD may have something. Typically in the field, depts use individual officers (or other PD employees) with language skills on a routine basis for translation. It is also common for a dept to call other neighboring depts for a translator if a specific language need is not addressed within one's own dept. There are other resources depending on the nature of the need. For example, a police chaplain with a non-English speaking congregation could be call in for a trauma/disaster to help communicate. Community volunteers can also be used. Most common languages in a geographical area can probably be addressed in this fashion. But if the need for Norwegian comes up, somebody's going to get creative.

[Roddd]

On our department, we have officers that speak different languages (ASL included) and they handle all interpretations. They get a 3.5% pay increase for it. If you're looking at becoming an LEO, your degree would improve your chances at getting hired. You'd be able to work as an interpreter on your days off. But we don't employ interpreters only.