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London Metropolitan Police Department recently announced the newest selection criteria for new officers: they must speak a second language.
But not just any language would do. They published a list with the specific languages they´re looking for in new police constables. New applicants must speak at least one of these languages, besides English of course:
- Yoruba (Nigeria)
- Hebrew
- Arabic
- Hindi
- Punjabi
- Italian
- German
- Turkish
- Greek
- Spanish
- Polish
- Portuguese
- Sinhali (Sri Lanka)
- Bengali
The London Metropolitan Police Department stated that, even though a person who doesn’t speak a second language could perform perfectly as a police officer, a second language is a valuable asset that will help the new officer and their colleagues to communicate effectively with the ethnically diverse London population.
People who don’t meet this criteria should refrain from applying for a Police Constable position, as they won’t be considered until further notice.
Having police officers that are able to speak different languages has become imperative, due to London’s growing population of diverse ethnicities. These new bilingual police officers will have an important role as translators and interpreters, and will be able to help the population in a variety of situations thanks to this important skill.
