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Challenging Language Barriers

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Forensic Psychiatry and Psychology in Europe

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Abstract

It is evident that language can form a barrier in practising as a clinician and in carrying out and reporting on assessments in forensic clinical settings. More importantly, language barriers may challenge substantive equality of treatment within the justice system. These difficulties can be mitigated by investing appropriately in services to overcome the barriers such as interpretation and translation services at a clinical and organisational level and into further research to translate and validate assessment tools. Better language training from early school years, as well as new technologies, could help mitigate language barriers. Instantaneous translation of written material and indeed the spoken word using electronic applications on computers and smart phones is already possible and may well provide further options for overcoming language barriers in clinical and therapeutic settings once they become more advanced and their reliability established. Growing difficulties arising from language barriers need to be addressed within the European Union.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hestia Duran i Reynals, Barcelona’s Official College of Physicians, Universitat Internacional de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain

    Esperanza Gómez-Durán

  2. Division of Forensic Psychiatry, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) and University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Roland Jones

Authors
  1. Esperanza Gómez-Durán
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  2. Roland Jones
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Correspondence to Esperanza Gómez-Durán .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Antwerp University Hospital, University Forensic Centre (UFC) & University of Antwerp, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Collaborative Antwerp Psychiatric Research Institute (CAPRI), Edegem/Wilrijk, Belgium

    Kris Goethals

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Gómez-Durán, E., Jones, R. (2018). Challenging Language Barriers. In: Goethals, K. (eds) Forensic Psychiatry and Psychology in Europe. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74664-7_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74664-7_8

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-74662-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-74664-7

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