Device

Voice recognition technology is helping with bookings and releases at the Lee County Sheriff’s Department detention facility.

Right now about 17-hundred inmates are being held in Lee County – about ten percent speak little or no English. Since human translators aren’t always available the agency has purchased three portable translation devices. Deputy Angelo Vaughn says they’ve been very helpful.

“what it does is phonetically analyze spoken phrases and match those with phrases that are prerecorded foreign languages such as Spanish german and creole. If the inmate is speaking in Spanish it will translate what the inmate is saying to us in English.”

And the device will also translate English into Spanish – or creole. The translators cost about 25 hundred dollars. Vaughn says they can’t replace humans – but are a good substitute in a pinch.