While patrol functions, SWAT Teams, and major crime investigations are often in the limelight of a police department’s operations, back at the station is a facility and personnel who will probably never be featured on a station tour. However, the role they play in the prosecution of criminal suspects is just as important as those in the daily news. Complex operating standards guide its personnel and the facility itself, and if not adhered to, the work of scores of other officers may be for naught.

Law enforcement property and evidence room operations are held to the highest level of accountability. Many police agencies utilize outside evidence management experts to conduct audits of their evidence rooms. Doing so puts neutral eyes on the evidence room functions and may be especially valuable when examining adherence to standard operating procedures by evidence room personnel.

This piece discusses how regular evidence room audits can uncover operational challenges so the agency can address them.

1. FACILITY SECURITY

Evidence rooms must be secure and access limited to authorized personnel. Over time, facilities and their equipment age. Audits will inspect the facility itself to ensure it remains secure. This includes checking surveillance, access control, and alarm systems for functionality. Maintaining a secure facility is a baseline requirement for evidence integrity. The agency can quickly address any discrepancies found during an audit.

2. EVIDENCE ROOM INVENTORY

It’s a fact. Most evidence rooms in use today weren’t designed to handle the volume of evidence they have on hand. Many evidence rooms have become disorganized even as personnel do their best to store all the evidence entrusted to them. Making matters worse is that evidence comes in all shapes, sizes, and storage requirements. In this environment and over time, items can become misplaced or even lost. Regular audits identify misplaced items so they can be promptly located. Verifying the status of an agency’s evidence inventory is one of the most valuable aspects of an audit. Doing so allows evidence room personnel to take the action required to rectify the situation, ensuring chain of custody is maintained, and all evidence is appropriately stored.

3. LEGAL AND OPERATING STANDARDS

Maintaining evidence so that it is admissible in court is a big part of why evidence rooms exist. Personnel must maintain a verified, unbroken chain of custody record for each piece of evidence stored in their facilities. Auditors verify that evidence room personnel follow the standards and laws governing evidence management in their facilities – including proper chain of custody documentation. Any discrepancies can be a basis for the evidence being ruled inadmissible in court. Audits can reveal anomalies in documentation or procedures so the agency can promptly correct them.

4. POLICY COMPLIANCE

Law enforcement has strict policies and procedures governing evidence management. Regular audits include a review of these policies and procedures comparing them to how personnel complete their daily tasks. Auditors ask: Is their work in compliance with the agency’s policies? Noncompliance issues can be raised in court and jeopardize the admissibility of evidence at trial. While retraining personnel can address noncompliance issues, discrepancies can also reveal the need to update policies and procedures to reflect modern best practices.

5. DOCUMENTATION

There are many steps in properly documenting evidence collection, handling, movement, storage, and retrieval. And every one is critical in the evidence management process. Evidence room personnel are highly trained and understand the role proper documentation plays in their operations and the admissibility of evidence at trial. However, mistakes can and do happen occasionally. Auditors scrutinize the documentation process and physically inspect the evidence to ensure labeling, inventory logs, and other pieces of the documentation puzzle are accomplished and maintained according to policy, standards, and the laws governing them. Again, any issues identified can then be corrected by agency personnel. 

6. RESOURCES AND EFFICIENCY

Regular audits, especially those conducted by outside experts, take a deep dive into the operations and systems’ functionality in their client’s property and evidence rooms. Checking the physical plant and security infrastructure is an obvious benefit of an audit, but they also reveal inconsistencies and inefficiencies in workflows that can hinder daily operations. Some of these inconsistencies may be from a deviation in the standards of evidence management. Others may reveal procedures that have become slow, ungainly, or near-impossible to adhere to due to the overwhelming amount of evidence that needs to be handled. The causal factors of this inefficiency can be a need for more resources, including personnel resources, supplies, and space within the evidence room, among others. Audits identify these issues, and some, such as noncompliance with standards, must be addressed to preserve the integrity of the evidence for later use at trial. Other problems may require a shift in or additional resources to be rectified. 

A lack of resources and efficiency are two primary reasons law enforcement agencies seek help from the private sector. There are only a handful of professional private providers across the country, but they offer long-term evidence storage solutions for law enforcement agencies. These companies have former police evidence management experts on staff with facilities large enough to handle evidence storage well into the future. Another benefit offered is audits. Their experts conduct thorough audits to help law enforcement operate and maintain their evidence rooms according to modern best practices.

SUMMARY

Regular audits of police property and evidence rooms are not “nice to haves;” they are “must-haves” for today’s law enforcement agencies. Audits identify anomalies in security, inventories, standards compliance, documentation, operational efficiency, and resource allocation. These must be maintained and regarded as standard operating procedures in evidence management. The failure of just one aspect in the evidence management process can be challenged, resulting in the inadmissibility of evidence or having an entire criminal case dismissed in court. Finding and fixing problems in evidence room operations via the auditing process allows law enforcement agencies to maintain the integrity of the evidence on hand and improve their operations in the future. Many agencies have turned to the private sector’s long-term evidence storage solutions, finding them a cost-effective answer to their lack of resources while providing professional audit services as well.

FORTRESS PLUS SOLUTIONS 

Fortress Plus Solutions provides safe, secure, documented transportation, handling, and storage of evidence and property for the long term. If your items require special storage conditions – we provide that. In addition, we offer evidence room audits to help law enforcement maintain best practices and accurate and up-to-date inventory records. In our blog, we post informative articles about privatized long-term storage and the auditing process. To learn more about our services, click here. 

Private, long-term evidence storage companies assist law enforcement agencies in their evidence management operations. They provide:

• Off-site, secure, alarmed, unmarked, and monitored facilities
• Proper storage environments so evidence is appropriately maintained
• An unbroken chain of custody documentation
• Large facilities and interior infrastructure ensuring the organization of evidence
• Tracking systems that document evidence movement within the facility and can precisely locate any piece of evidence at any time
• Compliance with the laws, standards, and best practices of evidence management

Private providers do things right, and most have former police evidence management experts on staff overseeing their processes.

But law enforcement agencies will always have and operate their own property and evidence rooms. Not all pieces of evidence need to be stored long-term. There are many reasons why items must be held locally – at least for the short-term; accessing them for in-progress investigations, analysis, and other testing are examples.

1. TODAY’S CHALLENGES

Consider an evidence room in a busy police department guided by modern policies and procedures. But their facilities may not be modern at all. In many, the evidence room wasn’t designed for the overwhelming amount of evidence stored there. It’s disorganized. Personnel are doing their best, but boxes are stacked on the floor, shelves overflowing, and large or odd-shaped items are piled atop each other in a corner or two, or maybe all of them. This environment is a reality for many law enforcement property and evidence rooms nationwide.

It is a situation that lends itself to inefficient evidence retrieval times, issues in maintaining unbroken chain of custody records, items not stored in their called-for environments, misplaced or lost items, and problems with standards compliance generally. Working in such an environment is also stressful for personnel.

For those reasons, agencies turn to private providers for their long-term evidence storage solutions.

2. NEWFOUND OPERATIONAL EFFICIENCY

Not to be overlooked are the benefits gleaned by the personnel and operations of the evidence room at the station – after the long-term evidence is transferred to a private provider.

Imagine being the personnel of an evidence room after all the long-term evidence has been transferred off-site. It’s the following morning. There are two of you, and you meet up in the hallway in front of the evidence room door. One of you uses a swipe card, opens the door, and…

It’s like when Dorothy opened the front door of her black and white house after being thrown over the rainbow and landing in OZ. Remember how you felt the first time you watched The Wizard of Oz? Remember that Technicolor scene of Munchkin Land just past the porch blowing you away?

That’s how your evidence room personnel will feel when they open their door for the first time after the transfer. Even though they helped throughout the transition and were probably there last night, this was the first full day working in an entirely new, user-friendly environment.

Were those two smiling? Absolutely.

While there’s still lots of reorganizing and probably cleaning to be done, there’s space to do it in. And after completing those housekeeping chores, operational efficiencies can become the norm. Such as:

• Faster evidence retrieval from the organized inventory
• Decreased risk of misplaced or lost items
• Decreased risk of mislabeled items or other documentation errors, including maintaining unbroken chain of custody records
• Decreased risk of evidence stored in an improper environment
• Enhanced ability to comply with evidence handling and storage standards and the agency’s policies and procedures
• Increased efficiency and even value of regular audits
• The smiles on your personnel’s faces

Except for the last line, does that list look like the one summarizing the benefits of storing long-term evidence with a private company? It’s close, at least.

While certainly not at the same scale, the local PD’s property and evidence room can now operate much more efficiently, like their private big brothers do.

Besides the obvious practical value, law enforcement executives should consider the improved functions of their in-house evidence room when presenting the benefits of private evidence storage to government leaders.

SUMMARY

The benefits of transferring evidence that must held long-term are not reserved for the services offered by a private company. They extend to the agency’s present facility, personnel, and operations. From faster retrieval times and improved compliance with standards to an acceptable workload for personnel, local evidence room operations will improve when an agency contracts with a private provider to store its long-term evidentiary items. This fact is one of many police managers can present to their governing bodies to justify contracting with private evidence storage providers.

FORTRESS PLUS SOLUTIONS

Fortress Plus Solutions provides safe, secure, documented transportation, handling, and storage of evidence and property for the long term. If your items require special storage conditions – we provide that. In addition, we offer evidence room audits to help law enforcement maintain best practices and accurate and up-to-date inventory records. In our blog, we post informative articles about privatized long-term storage and the auditing process. To learn more about our services, click here.

Law enforcement agencies are turning to the private sector for solutions to their long-term evidence storage needs. This industry has been around for over 20 years, and many departments take advantage of their services – if they are lucky enough to have one in their area. Presently, there are only a handful of companies offering this service in the United States.

About Private Providers

The companies that make up this industry are well thought of and respected. Most deliver services customized to the client’s needs and are cost-effective for the client agency. They are staffed by law enforcement personnel – both active and retired – who are experts in the field of evidence management. They employ highly trained, vetted employees and are led by people with years of successful business experience.

With these individuals at the helm, they understand their industry from the inside out and understand long-term evidence management from a law enforcement perspective.

They know the laws, standards, regulations, and best practices that govern evidence management, including storage and preservation in particular. In this piece, we will examine how private evidence storage companies are held accountable to key regulations in the same manner as law enforcement. And how they accomplish it.

1. Maintaining an Unbroken Chain of Custody Record

For evidence to be admissible in court, an unbroken chain of custody record must be maintained. From the initial collection to its release back to the collecting agency, every segment of the item’s journey must be documented. The people involved, dates, times, locations, and reason for transfer must all be recorded and maintained. Private companies use modern tracking systems and can account for the movement and location of every piece of evidence in their inventories. These systems simplify and accurately maintain chain of custody records for private providers.

2. Evidence Integrity 

Maintaining the integrity of evidence is what evidence management is all about. A vital part of that process is securing and preserving the evidence to prevent tampering, theft, or degradation. Private providers ensure the security and preservation of items in their care. Multi-purpose alarms, video monitoring, and access control systems protect their facilities. Storing items in their proper environments preserves the evidence. For items like guns, narcotics, and cash, many companies offer separate, secure rooms within their facilities, adding another level of security and accountability for these types of evidence.

3. Legal Compliance

Legal compliance is one area that the private sector excels in, and their facilities are one aspect of that compliance. The security measures, temperature and humidity-controlled zones, space, and interior infrastructure all help them maintain compliance. In addition, the tracking systems, monitoring capabilities, and protocols practiced by private companies all have their part in legal compliance. With evidence management experts on staff, compliance with laws and regulations is routine and monitored. Private providers realize they must stay up-to-date on the best practices of their industry, and they do so by maintaining memberships in state and national evidence management associations and attending necessary training.

4. Record Keeping and Documentation

Nothing indicates “accountability” quite like accurate documentation and record keeping. Both play a huge role in legal compliance and maintaining proof of evidence integrity. Police personnel have operated within this arena for years. Private companies are well aware of the requirements and maintain detailed records and documentation of the evidence in their possession and the processes utilized to keep it safe. Companies understand that their records and documentation are held to the same high standards as law enforcement’s in court proceedings.

5. Audits

Internal and external audits are routine procedures for professionally operated police evidence rooms. The services of private companies mirror many of the activities and processes and share legal responsibilities with their public counterparts. With this being the case, they should embrace the audit process as well. The results of conducted audits will demonstrate their adherence to the standards and regulations of evidence management. Audits indicate that they are holding themselves accountable, and that builds trust for their business.

Conclusion

Private providers and law enforcement are held to the same laws, standards, and regulations of evidence management. Private companies must demonstrate that their operations meet or exceed the standards of evidence storage and preservation. They do so by complying with the law, maintaining the strictest evidence integrity, keeping meticulous records, and conducting audits of their facilities. While there are other ways private companies demonstrate their adherence to regulations and best practices of the industry, they all add up to a high level of accountability and help them earn the trust of law enforcement and the public. 

FORTRESS PLUS SOLUTIONS

Fortress Plus Solutions provides safe, secure, documented transportation, handling, and storage of evidence and property for the long term. If your items require special storage conditions – we provide that. In addition, we offer evidence room audits to help law enforcement maintain best practices and accurate and up-to-date inventory records. In our blog, we post informative articles about privatized long-term storage and the auditing process. To learn more about our services, click here.

Professional law enforcement evidence managers realize the benefits of transparency and the fact that their operations must abide by numerous standards and laws to preserve the evidence in their care. They are knowledgeable in the standards and procedures they must follow. And they know they, along with the job they do, will be held accountable at every stage of the evidence management process. This accountability comes from within – holding themselves accountable – and outside sources, namely the many facets of the criminal justice system itself. Regular audits of property and evidence rooms demonstrate transparency and accountability in their operations. This piece discusses both benefits and why audits are vital in modern police evidence management.

1. PRESERVATION OF EVIDENCE

Preserving evidence for use at trial is a process that’s been around for over one hundred years. It can be complicated because many types of evidence have different storage requirements. From on-scene collection, packaging, labeling, and storing, all must be accomplished while adhering to accepted modern standards and laws. Maintaining an unbroken chain of custody record is one of the most essential requirements. It applies to every single item of evidence throughout the time held by law enforcement. And for some, that can be years. Regular evidence room audits play a crucial role in preserving evidence as it demonstrates the agency is abiding by the required standards and the evidence remains unaltered throughout the time it is stored.

2. MISHANDLING OF EVIDENCE

Conducting regular audits is a process law enforcement agencies use to hold themselves accountable for their evidence room operations. A thorough audit consists of inspecting the stored evidence, making sure it is packaged and appropriately documented, stored in the right conditions, in the location noted, and can be retrieved efficiently, among other things. An audit may uncover an issue somewhere along the line, and personnel can rectify the situation if it does. It’s important to note that procedural mistakes can happen occasionally, especially with the volume of evidence typically found in today’s evidence rooms. Audits can find and provide the vehicle to fix those mistakes in a timely manner.

3. PROCEDURES, STANDARDS, AND LAW COMPLIANCE

While an evidence room audit may bring to mind the physical inspection of items and documentation on hand to ensure they match, a thorough audit goes beyond that. Many departments hire outside evidence management experts to conduct their audits. Using an outside organization demonstrates transparency and accountability. These organizations can take a deep dive into all functional areas and operations of a client’s evidence room, including a review of the agency’s policies and procedures. They compare them to the real-life daily operations of assigned personnel. This can uncover discrepancies in the actions taken by personnel or the practicality of the written policies. Retraining or even rewriting the policies for suitability can address situations where personnel operate outside their standing policies. Besides looking at standard operating procedures, the specific regulations and laws governing evidence management are reviewed to ensure compliance as well.

4. ETHICS

While law enforcement personnel are bound to obey the law, they have an ethical obligation to abide by the standards and regulations concerning evidence management. There are no acceptable shortcuts in the complexity of evidence preservation. Any alteration of the accepted standards can jeopardize the integrity of the evidence, causing it to be ruled inadmissible in court proceedings. Regular audits can deter the shortcut temptation and expose them if they are present. 

SUMMARY

Transparency and accountability play a significant role in the operations of police property and evidence rooms. Law enforcement personnel hold themselves accountable and know they will be held accountable by others in the criminal justice system. Agencies audit their own evidence rooms and contract with outside experts to conduct audits of their inventories and operations. Both demonstrate transparency and accountability, but utilizing outside organizations takes that transparency and accountability to another level. Regular audits can uncover anomalies in procedures, inventories, documentation, standards compliance, and more. Professional police agencies utilize the auditing process to ensure transparency and accountability are standard operating procedures within their property and evidence rooms.

FORTRESS PLUS SOLUTIONS

Fortress Plus Solutions provides safe, secure, documented transportation, handling, and storage of evidence and property for the long term. If your items require special storage conditions – we provide that. In addition, we offer evidence room audits to help law enforcement maintain best practices and accurate and up-to-date inventory records. In our blog, we post informative articles about privatized long-term storage and the auditing process. To learn more about our services, click here.

The legal and compliance landscape that law enforcement must traverse when it comes to evidence management isn’t a flat and easy journey. It’s complicated, time-consuming, and resource-intensive.

There are laws and standards that must be followed so the admissibility of evidence if challenged, will stand up in court. More importantly, processing evidence using today’s best practices identifies the correct criminal suspects and eliminates innocent parties.

Law enforcement personnel need and want to do things right. From the first officer on the scene watching where they’re stepping to the retrieval of DNA evidence stored for years, many legal and compliance regulations must be followed–all for safeguarding criminal case evidence.

SETTING THE STAGE

Keep in mind that law enforcement must properly preserve, collect, package, and properly store evidence in the short term. They may need to send it to a lab, or in a large agency, it may stay in-house. However, short-term evidence management is still resource-intensive, and personnel must adhere to the laws and regulations already alluded to. And most agencies are prepared for and can handle that quite well.

The next step of the process, storing the evidence long-term, is where law enforcement is presently struggling; it’s reached crisis mode for many. Their facilities weren’t built for the volume of evidence they must store for the long run.

These agencies cope as best they can, but evidence rooms are stuffed to the gills – shelves overflowing with boxes, envelopes, and bags. Others lay on the floor, on top of cabinets, in desk drawers, and odd-shaped items? Those can be found, well, anywhere within the evidence room.

And that untidy description doesn’t even take into account evidence that should be refrigerated or kept at a non-room temperature or certain humidity level.

Evidence room personnel are doing the best they can with what they’ve got.

STREAMLINING THE LEGAL AND COMPLIANCE PROCESS

When you think about legal and compliance issues, it’s easy to think about them abstractly. Still, they are requirements that specify actions, conditions, and procedures that must be present and rigorously implemented.

Privatized long-term evidence storage companies streamline those actions, conditions, and procedures for law enforcement. Here’s how:

1. Compliance customized: For long-term evidence storage, the words “Compliance Customized” will never be uttered by evidence room personnel at a local police agency. At a private provider, it could be a catchy slogan. More importantly, it would be true. Many types of evidence require unique storage environments, and those in the business provide them. From refrigeration units to temperature and humidity-controlled zones within their facilities, providers ensure that individual items of evidence are stored according to applicable standards and regulations at all times. Additionally, firearms and drugs require special handling, and most private companies provide special armories and vaults within their facilities that comply with or exceed any regulations regarding their storage.

2. Evidence Accessibility:Private companies utilize large warehouses with the correct interior infrastructure to store evidence. This allows items to be stored in a neat, organized fashion. They use modern labeling, cataloging, and tracking systems that identify each piece of evidence and its precise location, allowing it to be easily retrieved or audited.

3. Chain of custody:Maintaining an unbroken chain of custody record is an absolute requirement in court and compliance audits. Private companies use technology and procedures to ensure the chain of custody documentation is 100% accurate. Their facilities lend to the ease of this record as once a piece of evidence is placed in storage; it normally need not be touched again until it’s retrieved.

4. Compliance audits made easy:Private sector providers streamline the auditing process by their very nature. Their technology pinpoints evidence location in an already organized facility. Accurate documentation of an item’s lifecycle in storage can be provided with a few clicks on a computer keyboard. Physical inspection of evidentiary items is conducted quickly and efficiently. Proof of law and regulatory compliance regarding items in their care is easy to provide when requested.

SUMMARY

Privatizing long-term evidence storage for law enforcement offers ways to streamline the process while maintaining proof of strict adherence to the laws and standards governing them. While agencies will always handle initial processing and short-term evidence storage, private providers offer long-term solutions. This way of doing business decreases law enforcement’s overall resource investment while allowing them to be confident that their evidence is handled, managed, stored, and documented in compliance with the law and best practices. And private companies can efficiently prove that compliance through physical inspection of their facilities and readily available documentation.

FORTRESS PLUS SOLUTIONS

At Fortress Plus Solutions, we provide safe, secure storage, handling, and transportation of evidence and property requiring long-term and special storage conditions. In addition, we offer evidence-room audits to help law enforcement maintain accurate and up-to-date evidence-room inventory records. And in our blog, we post informative articles about privatized long-term storage. To learn more about our services, click here.