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I Dear Joe,
I recently attended one of your classes in Texas, where you spent a great deal of time discussing the reasons that we, in the property room, need to retain "stuff", so much longer. The primary reason is because of DNA, and how it's changing our world in the property room.
I recall that you mentioned one of the greatest challenges for some departments is the backlog of sexual assault kits and other related evidence. Additionally, you had some very strong feelings about the need to evaluate our department's inventory of this type of evidence and bring it to the attention of our supervisor.
You also mentioned that many officers are lacking the knowledge of how beneficial the science of DNA is and how the CODIS data base is solving old crimes daily.
Joe, you were right! When I returned, I took a cursory inventory of my room, I found over 35 sexual assault cases that were still within the statute of limitations that had never been sent to the lab. When I approached my Sergeant with the issue, he stated there was no reason to send the sexual assault kits to the lab, becasue we had no known suspect. When I tried to further explain, the conversation was over as he thought the evidence custodian was trying to tell him how to do something!
What do you suggest?
Sincerely,
"Conversation Was Over"
Dear "Conversation Was Over,
I'm guessing that the Sergeant is no different than many other law enforcement officials across the country who hasn't stayed abreast of the ever-changing science regarding DNA and it's advantages.
In 2007 the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) surveyed over 2,000 state and local law enforcement agencies and determined that agencies had not submitted forensic evidence (including DNA, fingerprints, firearms and toolmarks) to a crime lab in:
· 14 percent of open, unsolved homicides
· 18 percent of open, unsolved rapes
· 23 percent of open, unsolved property crimes
In the same survey it was determined that
· 44 percent said one of the reasons they did not send evidence to the lab was because a suspect had not been identified
· 15 percent said they did not submit evidence because analysis had not been requested by a prosecutor
(the survey can be found:
http://www.nij.gov/topics/law-enforcement/investigations/handling-evidence/unanalyzed-evidence.htm#whynotsubmitted
Much of the misunderstanding is that the CODIS data-base can be used to link not only persons to a crime, but can link crimes together. The Los Angeles Police Department recently linked 12 homicides that occurred over 25 years to each other that had no known suspect. The California Department of Justices DNA lab then conducted a "familial search" of the 12 crimes and identified a 25 year old person in prison with a similar DNA. A family tree was then constructed from the person in jail, and that determined that his father had been in and out of prison for years, but had never been swabbed for his DNA. A seven-day surveillance followed the father to a pizza restaurant where he a discarded a piece of crust. Detectives swooped in, collected the crust, and submitted the item for DNA analysis. The detectives discovered that his was in fact the "Grim Sleeper," and he has been charged with multiple homicides.
In May 2011 National Institute of Justice (NIJ) authored another study called "The Road Ahead: Unanalyzed Evidence in Sexual Assault Cases": http://www.nij.gov/pubs-sum/233279.htm In this study they discovered some other very interesting facts about DNA that should be disseminated to anyone assigned to any type of investigative units in our departments.
· 3 investigators in 10 said they did not submit evidence because they were uncertain of its usefulness.
· 11 percent of the agencies that responded to the survey said that one reason they did not submit evidence was the lab's inability to produce timely results.
· 6 percent said that the lab was not accepting new evidence because of a backlog.
· 43 percent of the nation's law enforcement do not have a computerized system for tracking forensic evidence, either in their inventory or after it is sent to the cime lab.
I would encourage all of our readers to download the above linked articles and use as training aids within your department.
Other DNA links can be found at www.iape.org/resourcesPages/tips.html
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