Departmental Policies and Procedures Related to People with Low Literacy Skills

The responsibilities of individual officers

Police officers are legally and morally obligated to make sure that people with low literacy skills understand their situation, their rights, and the effects of their decisions.

• Know how to recognize the signs that a person has low literacy skills.
• Make sure the person understands all the information given to them orally and in writing.
• Understand that failing to take into account a person’s low literacy skills may result in lost cases, evidence ruled inadmissible in court, and civil actions against the police service. The responsibilities of police departments

Police services are obliged to make sure that all officers take appropriate steps to help people with low literacy.

• Train officers in how to recognize literacy problems and how to assist these problems.
• Develop procedures for officers to assess the literacy of victims, witnesses, and accused persons.
• Develop or adopt quick, practical tests for officers to use to identify a person’s literacy problem as early in the process as possible.
• Develop ways to explain the rights to remain silent and to have legal counsel so that people with low literacy can understand them
• Check regularly to see that officers are applying the policies and using the procedures consistently, and that these steps are working