Law enforcement agencies across the country face numerous operational challenges, but a recurring issue is their inability to manage the volume of physical evidence accumulating in their property and evidence rooms.
It looks like this: The day comes when the last piece of evidence that can be stored properly is stored properly – in compliance with all the regulations and best practices of law enforcement evidence management. It sounds like a milestone to be celebrated. It’s not. It passes without fanfare.
Evidence collection in the field continues. Evidence storage continues, albeit improperly, as that’s the only option now. This is when an orderly evidence room begins to get cluttered and disorderly. New items are stacked on flat surfaces wherever there’s room, and the tops of evidence containers become another layer of shelving for new evidence. For the first time, the floor becomes an acceptable place to store containers and, later, piles of individual items of evidence.
This is the birth of chaos in an evidence facility, and if no action is taken to improve the conditions, it will only worsen. Unfortunately, this is the situation in evidence facilities across the country.
The causes are many but include insufficient manpower leading to neglect of the facility, outdated record-keeping procedures, more evidence being collected than ever, and longer mandated storage periods.
Evidence room chaos creates new problems, some with severe consequences. Items can be misplaced, and locating specific items can take days or even weeks. Individual items of evidence can be ruled inadmissible when discovered in damaged packaging, exposing the evidence to potential contamination. Items that require special storage conditions are stored in non-compatible areas that may result in damaged or even destroyed evidence. If evidence used in filing charges is unavailable to prosecutors, proceeding with the case may be in jeopardy. Any failure of an agency’s responsibility to abide by the regulations of evidence management can tarnish its reputation and call into question its competency.
This opening section was framed to present the conditions and mention some of the problems faced by law enforcement agencies today regarding their evidence facilities. However, it could also describe the conditions and issues of one evidence room in one police department in the United States.
And it does. Let’s zero in on that agency and discover how it took control of its evidence room and what it plans to do to rebuild its entire evidence management process after years of neglect.
Background
This agency relied on an investigations supervisor to manage his workload, supervise others, maintain the evidence room and its inventory, coordinate any outside examinations and testing, and oversee their entire evidence management process post-collection. While their hearts were in the right place, this position couldn’t keep up with the duties required of the evidence function; however, due to a lack of manpower, this was their reality for nearly thirty years.
The result? An evidence room in disarray, an inventory whose numbers and history had faded from memory, protocols ignored, and an evidence management system that needed a complete overhaul.
The agency’s chief of police inherited the evidence room and its challenges. He knew something had to be done. Luckily, he knew who could help his agency and he reached out to Fortress Plus Solutions.
Fortress Plus Solutions
FPS is a highly respected, private long-term evidence storage company; that’s where the “Fortress” in their name comes in. But they do so much more. The “Plus Solutions” portion indicates they offer practical solutions to other problems and issues that law enforcement agencies deal with in the protection of their communities. They provide secure evidence storage, PLUS SOLUTIONS that address different issues related to law enforcement evidence management and beyond.
Boots on the Ground
Evidence management experts Tim Gainer and Joe Altman met with agency personnel, and they developed a long-range plan to bring order to the evidence room and ensure their evidence management process was brought up to modern regulatory standards.
Before they could do anything, Tim and Joe had to take stock of what was really going on in the evidence room. It was estimated that between five and six thousand items were stored there, but no one knew the exact number. Somewhere over time, they had lost count. In addition, no one remembered evidence ever being legally purged from the inventory.
Their first step was to complete an inventory of all the items in the evidence room.
It wasn’t an easy task.
The Inventory
All told, the inventory portion of the project took one hundred and sixty painstaking hours to finish. Six thousand items were individually handled and examined. About four thousand were identified, documented, and stored in the evidence room properly. About two thousand remained and were marked for destruction.
Gainer described the process as complex and intentionally slow. It had many starts and stops. For example, he described finding a hammer in a box, but neither was marked. Was it just a tool or critical evidence in a case? The condition of the inventory didn’t leave them a clue. One of the problems encountered was illegible labels or no labeling on the evidence at all. Gainer was sure that at one time, everything was labeled, but as years passed, some had come off, and no documentation of that fact existed. With this being the situation, that hammer could be just a hammer left behind by an employee, or it could be a murder weapon, requiring it to be stored forever. Such findings could not be overlooked, or their purpose in the inventory assumed. Several items fitting that description were found, and their histories were researched. Most were identified, but not all.
The most labor-intensive and time-consuming part of the inventory process was working with the agency’s paper records system – or trying to, anyway. It was outdated, illegible, incomplete, and a liability for the department because it did not provide accurate information about the items stored there. The chain of custody record for most items in the inventory was incomplete. The most consistent record found was the date a piece of evidence was placed in the evidence room. After that, few details were recorded or could be found.
As the inventory progressed, a separate, new record was created. The items processed and identified were logged into a spreadsheet, and their location in the evidence room was noted.
The Results
Through methodical and detailed work, Gainer, Altman, and the agency members who had assisted them on and off throughout the project restored order to the evidence room. The results were fabulous; the facility was organized, evidence was accounted for, and an environment of accountability not realized in years prevailed.
As the project neared completion, officers began to share their appreciation for Tim and Joe’s work. One officer went so far as to say that the transformation of the evidence room made him feel like his arrests “meant something” and made him feel more valued than before.
Improving officer morale may not be one of the most apparent benefits of a professional overhaul of an evidence room, but it happened in this case – with the help of Fortress Plus Solutions.
The Road Forward
With the inventory complete and the evidence room in order, the next steps of Tim and Joe’s plan are being finalized. Discussions include modernizing the infrastructure of the evidence room, creating standardized policies, assisting with the destruction of items flagged for purging, and possibly retaining FPS on a regular, part-time basis to assist with evidence management.
In addition, one of the most significant steps in the chief’s evidence management overhaul is transitioning from the paper records system to a modern, computer-based evidence management program. FPS will assist with the transition.
Conclusion
Fortress Plus Solutions is a private company with an excellent reputation for delivering the solutions police agencies need in evidence storage and management. In the case outlined here, with their expert help, decades of disarray and disorder were cleared, and the agency is poised for a future where compliance, efficiency, and accountability are routine. Thanks to FPS, what was once a significant liability is undergoing a process that will create a model of best practices in law enforcement evidence management.