Prison video link, parole and adjudications

Video link instead of a visit

A prison legal visit costs a solicitor most of a day. By secure HMPPS video link, the same conference takes the time it actually needs, and the interpreter does not add travel to the bill.

I work across the HMP estate UK-wide and hold both CTC clearance and Enhanced DBS, which is what most establishments will ask for.

Parole and remorse

Parole boards assess insight and remorse, and both are judgements about how a person says something. Arabic expressions of contrition frequently run through religious register — invocations of forgiveness, set formulae that carry real weight to the speaker.

Rendered literally into English, those can sound formulaic. Rendered too freely, the interpreter has manufactured remorse the prisoner did not express. The professional line is to render faithfully and make sure the panel knows it is hearing a religious formula rather than a rehearsed line. That is a note the interpreter should be able to give the board, and most are never asked for it.

Dialect coverage

• Yemeni Arabic — specialist
• Gulf Arabic
• Sudanese Arabic — rare
• All seven varieties in active practice