Police say 'welcome' in 14 languages

Jacky Jeng from Korea and Indian Prashant Gavri hope to make encounters with the police less intimidating for immigrants. Photo / Richard Robinson

Being greeted with a simple "How are you today?" is now only one of the options at Auckland's central police station.

Chances are, it will also include "namaste", "nihao" or even "annyeong-haseyo".

Yesterday, police started a project under which they have engaged 23 volunteers who between them speak 14 languages including Mandarin, Hindi, Tamil, Korean, Tagalog and Russian.

They will man the reception counter at the central police station in an effort to foster trust among migrants.

"We can't say for sure if there is under-reporting of crime from ethnic communities, but we are certain that many do not have the same level of trust in our police because their views are shaped by what they think of police back where they came from," said police Asian liaison officer Jessica Phuang.

"Language is the biggest barrier, but there's also culture and background. We hope to build that trust and make them less nervous when dealing with the police."

It was also an attempt to make the station less intimidating for immigrants and visitors.

Volunteers were trained in customer services skills, and were taken on a tour of prison cells and given an insight into police work.

Catherine Gardner, who is in charge of the file management centre, said the secondary objective was to give people from ethnic communities an opportunity to experience police work, and perhaps consider a career with the force.

The Auckland region had 97 Asian police officers, but needed hundreds more to be representative of the diverse communities, she said.

"It has been a challenge to look for people from ethnic communities to become sworn officers, and this is one way we are hoping to enlarge our pool," Ms Gardner said.

"We know that in the Auckland City district, we have large numbers of people from Asia and Southeast Asia, and it is good for them to be able to speak in their own language."

Although police did not record the ethnicities of those making reports, they believed that among the immigrant groups, refugees were most likely to be reluctant to come forward because of the hard time they had faced with police back home, she said.

Speakers of foreign languages have to use Language Line - a service managed by the Office of Ethnic Affairs - to get translations over the telephone when making a report to police.

Police customer services manager Tony Geldenhuys said that although the telephone service served its purpose, it was impersonal.

"If you've got someone speaking your language in person, it personalises your whole experience with the police."

It would help to put at ease ease a person who had been affected by an incident, said Mr Geldenhuys.

Ethnic volunteers will be at the station from Monday to Saturday between 10am and 6pm.