2015-11-02
Criminal justice systems throughout Europe and many other parts of the world increasingly use forensic speech science as evidence in courts.
In 2015, a grant was awarded to a team of journalists and researchers that uncovered how the use of this method led to severe miscarriages of justice. The investigation won the 2016 European Science Writer of the Year Prize and team members have been invited to speak at several academic conferences on the topic. The team leader was invited to participate in the UK Parliament Office of Science and Technology’s briefing on forensic language analysis.
In 2016, the same team was awarded another grant for an investigation (the first of its kind) on a controversial linguistic test that is being used in nine European countries to identify the origin of asylum seekers. The investigation showed how the technique, Language Analysis for the Determination of Origin (LADO), led to miscarriages of justice and revealed that it has been questioned by courts and immigration agencies in both the UK and Sweden. This issue is highly topical because the recent agreement between the European Union and Turkey on refugee management unfortunately includes the use of LADO.
Journalist Michele Catanzaro won the 2016 European Science Writer of the Year award for this project.
Read the two stories here:
