The Valley Advocate reports on language barriers between police and residents in Springfield, Massachusetts, where roughly one in five people speak a language other than English at home: "Now a group of city activists is calling on the Springfield Police Department to improve its services to residents who don't speak English. The Pioneer Valley Project—a coalition of community, religious and labor groups—is advocating for a city ordinance that would establish strict protocols for how the SPD deals with non-English speakers, including bilingual interpreters and translated documents."

The article also cites Vera's 2009 report Bridging the Language Divide: Promising Practices for Law Enforcement, which was published through a contract with the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, or COPS.

The article goes on to quote the report: "Communication is essential to the development of partnerships that make community policing an effective strategy for ensuring public safety," the report, released last year, noted. "Community policing programs, in which law enforcement officers partner with community members to identify and solve problems, cannot work well when officers and residents fail to understand each other.

"Without dialog, police cannot effectively conduct investigations, build community trust, or ensure that victims will report crime. If police do not get an accurate description of problems, their responses may be unsuccessful or counterproductive."