Property and Evidence  

By the Book  

2nd Edition

All New   

  30% more content than 1st Edition

Properyt and Evidence By The Book 2

Available July 1, 2011 -

 Available in hardback, CD and downloadable

Also available - Printable Property Room Forms

Notify Me When Available 

BAD MONTH FOR  

PROPERTY ROOMS

  I attended one of your seminars last year and you had a great breakdown of how many hours / days / and or months it took to properly dispose of items. I think it may have been in the slide show you presented.  My chief would like to know how long do I think it will take to "get rid" of some of our stuff since we are running out of room. I work alone in the property room and I am having a hard time expressing what takes soo long! Can you help me?

Thanks,

Michelle in Florida 

 Dear Michelle,   

Michelle. The following information is based upon about 65 audits that we have done around the US and Canada...Remember, its not a science and there are many factors that can easily alter this response. First of all some departments, the property room is responsible for researching the case prior to any purging. Any department where the research is done by the property room needs twice the labor as a department where the detective or arresting officer has to do the research. We in the property room generally do it out of preservation!. The research to diposition a case takes longer than any other task in the property room!!!!

The follow exhibits are based upon a department that the property officer is the person who has to contact the courts, prosecutors, and detective to determine the status of the case and obtain approval to purge. Most often research is completed in property as the investigating officers aren't responsive in doing the research.

Exhibit 1

illustrates a number of departments that have inventories from 3,000 to  15,000 items. The consensus across the country is that a typical criminal case has between 2.5 and 3.0 items per case. Remember, we research cases not items.  For the purpose of your inquiry, I am using 2.75 items per case.

The first column in the chart is the items of inventory (15,000 down to 3,000), the second column (Cases) is the 15,000 items divided by 2.75 (average). The third column is the case number divided by 30 minutes per case (5,455/30 minutes = 1.3 years or 15.7 months.  

  Exhibit 2 illustrates a department that is taking in 500 items per month (6,000 a year) or 2,182 case (2,182 cases/ 2080 hours). The 2080 hours is considered a FTE (Full Time Equivalent) employee or 40 hours x 52 weeks. What does this mean? If your are taking in 6,000 items a year you would need at least one person full time to purge (no other responsibilities, intake, releases, etc) . For those departments where the detective/ arresting officer is doing the research the time can be significantly less.  

Purging Time

For Additional Information on the topic visit

IAPE PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS 

CHAPTER 14 - DISPOSITIONS 

Tracker Products Trackerproducts.com offers evidence tracking software to police and law enforcement agencies and has successfully performed data transfers for clients switching from iTracker's 'Evidence Tracker' to the Tracker Products system in as little as twenty-four hours. "After we discovered that our current system 'Inventory Trackers' was no longer going to function after the first of the year we began to search for a new product that would be able to transition our old data and convert it into a new system.  TrackerProducts was the company we selected and we could not be happier.  We are still transitioning over but TrackerProducts has made this an easy process.  We look forward to a long working relationship, and would highly recommend TrackerProducts for those Law Enforcement agencies in need of a property/evidence system.", said Sgt. Wade Alexander of the Delmar, Delaware Police Department, one of the first to complete the transfer of data from iTracker's system to the Tracker Products system.

For agencies seeking to evaluate the Tracker Products system on a trial basis, Tracker Products offers a free, partial import of data from the 'Evidence Tracker' system.