No major updates on the website this week.
In November, John Black asked 10 questions of latent print sections:
1. What percentage of identifications does your agency verify?
2. What percentage of exclusions does your agency verify?
3. What percentage of inconclusives does your agency verify?
4. What percentage of ‘no value’ conclusions does your agency verify?
5. Do you review actual items of evidence that were processed by the initial examiner?
6. Do you verify all ‘non-match’ respondents from AFIS searches?
7. What are the reasons for not performing verifications on all conclusion decisions? Please be specific.
8. Do you agree with the concept of 100% verification? Why or why not? Please be specific.
9. How many latent print examiners does your agency employ?
10. What is the average caseload per month for each examiner?
Although he has received responses from over 30 departments, John is looking for any additional responses before he compiles his results. Responses can be sent to johnb@ronsmithandassociates.com with the agency name and ‘verification’ in the subject line.
we looked at the NIST Draft for Comment results of the ELFT Extended Feature Sets.
the Forensic Magazine e-newsletter featured the California Crime Laboratory Review Task Force's report entitled "An Examination of Forensic Science in California." Although the report is in regards to that state, it has (and continues to) receive enough nationwide attention that the scales have tipped in favor of passing it out as a Weekly Detail. You can expect that defense attorney's who are researching content for strong challenges of latent print examiners on the witness stand will come across this NAS-flavored material. Even if they are not in California, you might expect them to use some of the content found in this report, or perhaps even reference the report as relevant and current literature in the field. There are some very good arguments and valid recommendations that could apply just about anywhere in the U.S., so in agreement with what others have said, I am of the opinion that this report should be read by latent print examiners. Although the Executive Summary is represented below, it is recommended that the full article with original formatting be read from the permanent link:
http://ag.ca.gov/publications/crime_labs_report.pdf
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Executive Summary
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Organization and Management
Chapter 3: Staff and Training, Recruitment and Retention, Education, Certification
Chapter 4: Funding
Chapter 5: Performance Standards and Equipment, Workload Demands, Staffing, Equipment and Facilities, Accreditation
Chapter 6: Statewide Forensic Science Oversight
Executive Summary:
Over the years, a network of forensic laboratories was created throughout California to serve the state’s criminal justice system. The California Department of Justice established several state-level labs while counties or cities developed their own entities. Since the criminal justice system depends on high-quality forensic science services, California enacted legislation in October 2007 to review the state’s crime laboratory system (Assembly Bill 1079, Richardson) with a mandate to the Department of Justice to create and chair the California Crime Laboratory Review Task Force. The legislation added section 11062 to the California Penal Code,1 which directed the Task Force to “make recommendations as to how best to configure, fund, and improve the delivery of state and local crime laboratory services in the future.”
The mandate considered a variety of issues for the Task Force to review, including the
following:
• Organization and management of crime laboratory services;
• Staff and training;
• Funding;
• Performance standards and equipment; and
• Statewide forensic science oversight.
The Task Force held monthly meetings from December 2007 through September 2009, with several hosted by crime lab directors. All meetings were open to the public. The members heard presentations from various organizations and individuals with expertise in crime laboratory oversight, ethics, and management; accreditation and certification; and forensic education and training. Interested members of the public in attendance also provided valuable input.2
To compile an inventory, which was mandated, and to gather other information necessary to complete its report, the Task Force drafted a comprehensive 19-page survey that was sent to each of the major crime labs operated by state, county, or local agencies.3 The labs proved to be tremendously cooperative and all returned the surveys. In addition, separate surveys were sent to all California district attorneys and county sheriffs, to a representative sample of local police departments, and to county public defenders and other defense organizations.4 A large number of surveys were returned, providing a wealth of useful data.5 Based on the results of these efforts, the Task Force prepared this report, An Examination of Forensic Science in California. This report has two goals: first, to provide an accurate snapshot of the current condition of government-funded forensic science in California, including descriptions and explanations of both successful and failed delivery of timely, reliable, scientific testing; and second, to recommend steps that state and local policymakers can take to identify and address deficiencies in the field while continuing to support its achievements.
A complete listing of the Task Force’s recommendations follows. The full report includes background information and discussions of the recommendations; each of these recommendations reflects the consensus of the Task Force.
Staff and Training
Recruitment and Retention
Recruitment of new personnel and the retention of skilled, proficient forensic professionals are serious concerns among California crime laboratories. The Task Force identified a number of problems and potential solutions relating to recruitment and retention. The labs’ primary concern is low pay at the entry level, resulting in difficulties in recruiting staff. This issue was consistently noted as a major problem by the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Forensic Services (BFS) labs, whose staff have the lowest pay rates within the state, and by county and city labs. Another common problem is the excessive length of time to hire new staff: government hiring procedures and thorough background investigations result in a hiring process that ranges from several months to a year. Many qualified job applicants accept other offers, sometimes more lucrative, within that waiting period. The Task Force identified the most critical recruitment solutions: (1) offer better compensation for state and some local agencies; (2) have human resources staff find ways to expedite the testing and selection process; and (3) give lab managers more direction and authority over hiring and selection. Survey responses from the county labs shared several common themes with state labs: they suffer from a lack of qualified candidates and they face stiff competition from other labs for desirable candidates. Specifically, several labs stated they have difficulty finding applicants who have thorough background knowledge of the discipline they wish to practice. Other issues: many applicants cannot pass a background check; others do not accept offers because the lab’s starting salary is too low (even in some of the labs with the highest pay).
Many county labs lose experienced staff because of burnout, high demands, monotony of casework, and excessive crime scene investigation responsibilities. In addition, many criminalists leave because of the high cost of living in their specific areas.
Orange County Sheriff-Coroner Department’s OC Crime Lab Recommendations
• Public crime labs should consider the appropriate employee classification of their forensic science professionals, and they should determine whether their salaries should be based on a model that compares salaries offered by similar-sized public agencies in relevant jurisdictions. For example, the California Highway Patrol (CHP) sets pay rates according to averages of several of the largest local agencies. The CHP currently uses the officer pay of the Oakland Police Department, the San Francisco Police Department, the Los Angeles Police Department and Sheriff’s Department, and the San Diego Police Department as a baseline for their salary rates. The lower-paying municipal labs could also use the average of the competing agencies’ salaries because several of them fell below the geographically adjusted average.
• Labs should consider the use of laboratory merit systems that offer higher pay to those who have advanced degrees and who demonstrate a willingness to participate in research projects that advance forensic science. Such incentives would be particularly appropriate for individuals who desire to promote to supervisory or management positions within the lab.
• Labs that currently do not offer pay incentives for individual analysts to achieve certification or assume technical lead duties should consider adopting incentives. Several municipal labs offer these incentives to retain their most qualified staff members.
• All public crime labs in California should consider adopting a common formula for calculating retirement benefits applicable to their forensic science professionals.
• Labs should give forensic scientists more opportunities to cross-train on different disciplines and to attend and participate in professional meetings.
• The controlling agencies’ human resources units should work more closely with the laboratory managers to find ways to expedite the testing process. In addition, a greater involvement and understanding by human resources staff regarding lab processes would benefit both the lab and human resources. For example, one lab manager appropriately suggested that human resources staff take a more active role in understanding the mission and procedures that occur in a lab to develop a rationale for a more rapid hiring cycle.
• Labs and parent agencies should investigate establishing uniform background standards for forensic scientists. Each agency should publish the particular background standards a candidate is required to satisfy, allowing candidates to avoid time spent submitting—and allow labs to avoid time spent evaluating—an ineligible application.
• Labs should streamline the background check process for criminalist position applicants and coordinate with parent agencies to allocate additional resources to the background investigation unit.
• Labs should join an interagency effort to coordinate background investigations of common applicants, share information, and reduce redundancy. This cooperative effort would be facilitated by adoption of a set of industry-wide background standards. The Task Force suggests that the California Association of Crime Laboratory Directors (CACLD) draft these standards and issue recommendations to public laboratories statewide.
Education
In this key area, it is widely agreed that forensic scientists need college or university-level training in scientific principles and practices and the scientific method. It is clear, however, that college training is often not enough. California’s lab directors have identified several deficiencies in the preparation of entry-level employees, most of whom are recent college graduates. According to lab directors, entry-level employees often lack:
• An adequate appreciation of what crime lab work entails;
• Basic “real-world” skills such as critical thinking, problem solving, and conflict resolution;
• Sufficient training in instrument analysis;
• Adequate training in particular disciplines, such as latent print analysis and crime scene investigation;
• Training in quantitative analysis and forensic statistics;
• Sufficient training in written and oral communication skills and report writing;
• Appreciation of the role of forensic science in the legal system and the courtroom; and
• Knowledge of ethical principles and legal standards and rules, including how to testify in court.
Recommendations
• The University of California and California State University should incorporate graduate level forensic science programs into mainstream course offerings.
• Continuing education for criminalists is essential, and the state should fund it accordingly. Crime laboratories should develop mandatory requirements for continuing education as part of their quality manuals.
• The state should provide sufficient funding to ensure proper staffing, maintenance, and future expansion of the California Criminalistics Institute (CCI) program, as well as the resources to hire outside contractors with specialized expertise to teach as necessary. Policymakers should consider a stable and permanent funding source for CCI, perhaps built along the model presented by the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST).
• CCI should develop a lab management training program.
• CCI or alternative training opportunities should be available in a greater variety of locations throughout the state.
• California law schools should incorporate scientific evidence training into their coursework offerings.
• The state should establish (or reestablish) a doctoral program in forensic science at one of its state university campuses.
• University programs focusing on forensic science should take a more active role in informing students about the scrutiny of background checks and what types of personal issues could preclude students from employment in a forensic lab.
Certification
Professional certification is a designation earned by a person to assure that he or she has the minimum qualifications necessary to perform a job or task. Currently, the certification of forensic scientists is available to qualified forensic practitioners but is not required by California or federal law.
The essential components of a professional forensic science certification program include minimum education, experience, and professional involvement necessary to apply for certification. (See Table 2, Chapter 3, which provides an overview of the minimum requirements of five principle forensic science certificate programs.)
Recommendations
• All persons who practice in a forensic science discipline or testify as a forensic science analyst/examiner6 should become certified by a reputable certifying body.
• All laboratories and their parent agencies are strongly encouraged to provide support and incentives to promote individual staff certification. Fiscal-based incentives may include funding application and sitting fees, as well as offering pay bonuses for certificate holders. Non-fiscal incentives may include on-duty study and test-taking time and the use of certificate status as a promotion factor.
• All forensic science professionals should have access to a certification process.
• The state should mandate that the only acceptable certificates are those granted by certification bodies accredited by the Forensic Specialties Accreditation Board, or certification bodies that adhere to requirements equivalent to those set forth by the Forensic Specialties Accreditation Board.
Funding
All California crime laboratories surveyed reported that they lack predictable and stable funding. California is not alone in this financial resource shortage. Testimony provided in 2008 to the National Academy of Sciences by the
American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors also addressed the need for adequate and sustainable funding sources in order for the nation’s crime laboratories to meet current and future demands.
The Task Force concluded that crime laboratory funding in California is inadequate, unpredictable, and too unstable to meet current demands or expectations of future growth. Changes to the existing funding to crime laboratories are needed to restore and enhance the effective delivery of forensic science services in California.
Recommendation
• Each agency that houses a crime laboratory in California must identify or create a consistent and reliable funding stream. It may be beneficial to link funding mechanisms to performance objectives as an incentive-based process that would enhance public confidence in government operations.
Performance Standards and Equipment
Workload Demands
The majority of lab directors reported that their laboratories experience some problems in meeting the demands of an ever-increasing workload. DNA, fingerprints, and firearms were most often identified as disciplines where requests exceeded staffing capabilities. While DNA is generally only available in a small percentage of cases, the demand and attention given to DNA appears to exceed that of many other forensic disciplines.
In addition, it is in non-DNA disciplines that labs expect demands to increase. In many cases, more staff cannot be hired because of the space limitations imposed by the size of the current laboratory facility. (In some cases, the space exists but the funds to hire criminalists do not.)
Recommendations
• Public crime laboratories should organize and participate in continuing education for attorneys and law enforcement in their service areas regarding effective use of forensic science and crime laboratory resources.
• Each crime laboratory should implement procedures to achieve better communication between stakeholders and laboratory personnel.
• Each crime laboratory should provide training to judges regarding the costs associated with lab personnel being away from the laboratory waiting to testify.
• Policymakers, laboratories, and laboratories’ parent agencies should consider novel approaches to increasing efficiency and mitigating workload demands. Regional consolidation of services, contract services, fee-for-service programs, and evidence item testing limits should be explored and evaluated.
• Laboratories should explore cross-training analysts in multiple disciplines based on the size and needs of the laboratory.
• Laboratories and the district attorney’s offices in their service areas should collaborate on standardizing routine discovery in criminal cases. In addition, labs should explore means of making items of discovery such as policy and procedure manuals available electronically.
• All crime laboratories should conduct studies to assess ways to improve efficiency and enhance productivity.
• All crime laboratories should explore whether flexible workweeks or alternative work shifts would facilitate efficiency.
• All crime laboratories should conduct a study to set standards for the number of crime lab analysts, supervisors, and support staff required to serve a particular population with a specified crime rate.
Staffing
Staffing levels are one of the key indicators of a laboratory’s ability to meet service demands. Staff in the crime laboratory typically includes analyst/examiners, technical support personnel, managers, and clerical and other support personnel.
The Task Force has identified factors that have a significant effect on the ability of technical staff to meet their workload demands. These factors include staff shortages; difficulty in attracting experienced analysts; training time; staffing fluctuations due to extended leave or family leave, vacation, sick leave, and scheduled days off; analyst retention; and staff turnover. Further, laboratory staff must frequently confront and resolve non-scientific issues such as agencies requesting that everything in the case be examined, the CSI effect, time spent in court, discovery and public records requests, increased demands for DNA analyses, and providing training to law enforcement and district attorneys. There is also lack of support staff, insufficient supervisory personnel, and paperwork and administrative duties that add significantly to the time it takes to analyze a case. Finally, quality assurance demands, grant management requirements, instrument maintenance duties, lack of space, and budget constraints are additional factors preventing existing staff from meeting casework demands.
Recommendations
• Jurisdictions and laboratory parent agencies should develop comprehensive plans for adding staff to their crime laboratories and detail all the anticipated benefits, both short- and long-term.
• The crime laboratory, parent agency, and all crime laboratory service stakeholders within the laboratory’s jurisdiction should collaborate to set acceptable standards for turnaround time service goals and the “not to exceed” number of backlogged cases.
• Crime laboratories, parent agencies, and other stakeholders should coordinate efforts to obtain authorization and funding for necessary additional staff.
• The state should conduct a study to establish a laboratory staffing formula that addresses the following areas:
o The acceptable number of cases per analyst in each forensic discipline;
o The acceptable analyst-to-manager ratio within laboratories;
o The acceptable number of laboratory support staff; and
o The feasibility of statewide guidelines that establish the ideal number of analysts to serve a particular size population with a specified crime rate.
In addition, the study should consider the feasibility of contract-based crime laboratory services or payment for forensic services (i.e., fee-for-service).
Equipment and Facilities
Many California crime laboratories lack necessary equipment or facilities. Laboratories, however, can and should consider outsourcing some requests to laboratories that possess additional or different capabilities. In addition to having the appropriate equipment for each discipline in forensic science, it is important to ensure the equipment is maintained and replaced as necessary.
Recommendations
• Laboratories should ensure that they possess all equipment and facilities necessary to provide the highest quality forensic science services and to meet all client demands in a timely manner.
• Laboratories should investigate and identify underutilized forensic science services for potential regional consolidation.
• Each laboratory should maintain an equipment replacement budget to ensure that its equipment is modern and functional.
Accreditation
The Task Force reviewed the status of crime laboratory accreditation. The term “accreditation” is defined in
the forensic science profession as the formal assessment and recognition by an impartial authority that a forensic laboratory is capable of meeting and maintaining defined standards of performance, competence, and professionalism.7 It is a status awarded to forensic laboratories, while certification is earned by individual forensic scientists. The accreditation of laboratories is a voluntary process and involves independent third-party scrutiny.
Recommendations
• All California public crime laboratories should be accredited through one of the available crime laboratory accreditation programs. The Task Force does not see a need to establish a parallel or unique forensic laboratory accreditation program in California. Conformance to existing accreditation programs is a rigorous and time-consuming endeavor for even the smallest forensic laboratories, and it is unlikely that any of California’s public crime laboratories would allow their accreditation status to lapse because the cost would be too great, especially the cost to the reputation of the forensic laboratory and its ability to acquire grant funding. Direct applications to the National Institute of Justice for DNA and forensic science improvement grants require proof of accreditation status to be considered for grant funding.
• The state should further study whether or how forensic science activities that occur outside of accredited crime laboratories could be brought within an accredited organization.
Statewide Oversight
The call for a unified statewide perspective on forensic science issues is a product of the various concerns expressed elsewhere in this report. While some laboratory shortcomings identified by the Task Force can be addressed locally by individual laboratories, others would be most effectively studied, and corrected, by means of inter-jurisdiction coordination and advocacy at a state government level. Thus, the creation of a statewide entity concerned with the timely delivery of reliable forensic science should be considered.
Recommendation
• California should establish a statewide body to consider issues related to forensic science. The specifics of this proposal, including the composition and functions of this body, will be described in a supplemental report published within one year of this report.
1 See Penal Code section 11062, set forth in Appendix B.
2 A list of the presentations is set forth at Appendix G.
3 A list of the crime labs is included in Chapter 2. A copy of the survey is attached as Appendix C.
4 Copies of the surveys are included as Appendices D and E.
5 Responses were received from district attorney’s offices, county sheriff’s offices, police departments, and defender organizations. All stakeholder survey responses are included on a DVD that accompanies this report.
6 An analyst/examiner performs casework-related duties on evidence items within the laboratory and issues reports
containing opinions or interpretations on the findings and observations resulting from the work.
7 Encyclopedia of Forensic Sciences, edited by Siegel, Saukko and Knupfer, 2000 Academic Press, Volume 1, Glossary, at p. Aii.
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Have a GREAT week!