CUSTODY staff working in South Yorkshire police stations are spending three times as long booking in non-English speaking prisoners.
South Yorkshire Police says dealing with immigrants has "stretched" resources in custody suites and increased the cost of running them through employing translators.
Chief Superintendent Mick Maguire, head of the force's Criminal Justice Administr
ation Department, said in a report for colleagues: "Interpreting for the increasing number of immigrants entering the country has stretches the resources in the suites.
"It takes approximately three times as long to book in a person who does not speak English as it does an English speaker.
"Interpreters need to be employed to facilitate their fair detention. This has an ever-increasing cost implication."
When prisoners are booked into custody suites as suspects in criminal offences a risk assessment must be carried out as soon as they arrive and again if they are moved to another police station to check that they do not pose a risk to themselves or others.
A further risk assessment must also be carried out when a prisoner is due to be discharged from custody to ensure they are fit for release.
Police chiefs plan to create a new £15 million custody suite to house 72 prisoners in Sheffield.
The new building will replace existing aging suites at police stations across the city and, including nine new extra cells to be built at Doncaster, will create enough room to hold 30 more prisoners than the force can currently deal with.
Police chiefs have identified potential sites around Junctions 34 and 35 of the M1 at Tinsley and Thorpe Hesley.
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