A Review of the Department of Public Safety’s Mississippi Crime Laboratory
Executive Summary
Introduction
In response to complaints from legislators and citizens, the PEER Committee conducted an efficiency review of the Mississippi Crime Lab.
PEER focused its review on:
Background
The Mississippi Legislature authorized creation of the Mississippi Crime Lab in 1956. MISS. CODE ANN. §45-1-2 (2)(d) (1972) places responsibility for oversight of the Crime Lab with the Mississippi Department of Public Safety. The Commissioner of Public Safety has the authority to staff, equip, and operate the crime laboratory and is responsible for appointing the Crime Lab Director.
According to the Mississippi Crime Lab Administration Manual, the mission of the Mississippi Crime Lab is:
To provide the highest quality, objective services in the recognition, collection, preservation, scientific analysis and interpretation of physical evidence in the pursuit of truth within the criminal justice system.
The Crime Lab operates a central laboratory in Jackson and three regional laboratories in Batesville, Biloxi, and Meridian. While the Jackson laboratory is a full-service crime lab, the regional offices only provide services in specialized areas. As of December 1, 2004, the labs had a total of seventy-two employees, with twenty-eight vacancies.
The Mississippi Crime Lab received the majority (69%) of its FY 2004 funding from general funds. In FY 2004, the Crime Lab received a general fund appropriation of $4,200,308. Other sources of funds in FY 2004 included federal grants ($779,478) and special funds ($1,084,567), composed of analytical fees and Implied Consent fees.
Does the Mississippi Crime Lab process forensic requests in a timely manner?
Based on data extracted by the Mississippi Crime Lab for PEER, the average turnaround time for all types of forensic requests exceeded the lab’s thirty-day turnaround goal in FY 2004.
A case submitted to the Crime Lab for forensic analysis may consist of one or more requests. A request is for a specific type of analysis (e.g., DNA testing) to be performed on one or more pieces of evidence. Factors impacting the amount of time required to complete a request include the number of tests required and the amount of time required to conduct that specific type of test. The numerous documentation procedures and cross checks involved in handling and processing a request, while necessary for purposes of quality assurance, add significantly to the time required to complete a request. In FY 2004, the Mississippi Crime Lab received 19,957 requests for analysis and received 48,389 pieces of evidence associated with those requests.
Timely completion of forensic analysis is essential to the proper functioning of the criminal justice system. Both the U. S. Constitution and state law guarantee the accused’s right to a speedy trial. Failure to conduct analysis on a timely basis can result in dismissal of an indictment. Because the Crime Lab has set a thirty-day turnaround goal for forensic requests and a review of selected states’ reports on crime labs confirms this is a reasonable goal, PEER defines thirty days as a reasonable goal of timeliness for completion of requests for forensic analysis.
Each forensic section’s average turnaround time for requests exceeded the Crime Lab’s thirty-day turnaround goal in FY 2004. The Meridian lab had the shortest average turnaround time, even though it experienced an increase in requests received and in pieces of evidence received in FY 2004. The Batesville and Biloxi labs had the longest average turnaround time of 112 days, even though they received fewer requests and worked fewer requests.
Do barriers exist to prevent the Mississippi Crime Lab from processing forensic requests in a timely manner?
Yes. Factors affecting the lab’s processing time include administration of the training program, utilization of the management information system, organizational structure, staff vacancies, and case management.
Administration of the Training Program
Because the Mississippi Crime Laboratory utilizes a self-paced training program without time limits for completion, new employees’ training periods can extend indefinitely. This reduces the amount of time available for experienced employees who oversee the training to work their own cases and delays the productivity of new employees. This condition exists, in part, because the Mississippi Crime Lab has not had formal, written training guidelines for the final technical assessment and communication training phase, which should serve as a guide for the administration of the training program (including timely completion), since February 2004. Also, according to PEER’s interviews with Crime Lab staff, because so many levels of administration are involved in training program administration, Crime Lab staff members are confused as to roles and responsibilities for training.
Utilization of the Management Information System
The Crime Lab does not utilize its management information system to its fullest capability. The Crime Lab does not have a full-time position dedicated to information management, which limits the lab’s ability to retrieve and analyze valuable data. Also, the Crime Lab utilizes only summary reports from the management information system, which do not provide managers with useful information for managing day-to-day operations and do not alert managers to potential problems.
Organizational Structure
The Mississippi Crime Lab’s organizational structure does not ensure efficient lab operations through use of staff resources. The Commissioner of Public Safety has not made an appointment to the Crime Lab Director’s position since the position became vacant in May 2004. According to interviews with Crime Lab staff, they believe that having an acting director for an extended period of time promotes an unhealthy work environment because staff members are hesitant to accept changes made by the acting director in anticipation that a new director will make his/her own changes. Also, Crime Lab staff members believe strongly that the Crime Lab Director should be hired through a competitive process and should not be subject to changes in administration.
PEER also found that the Crime Lab has not made the best use of its available staff resources, including the following:
Staff Vacancies
The Crime Lab’s Latent Print Section experienced a fifty percent decrease in staff from FY 2001 to FY 2004. Also, several staff members have other duties that affect their ability to provide timely analysis. Two of the five Latent Print Examiners have responsibilities for crime scene response and one of them also serves as the Acting Director of the Meridian Regional Laboratory and as the Latent Print Section Chief.
In the DNA Section, staff turnover has prohibited maintaining sufficient numbers of forensic biologists to provide timely analysis of DNA samples. The DNA Section has had to contract out technical review services or send requests to private labs six times since 1999 in order to remain operational. Compounding the problem of staff vacancies in this section is the fact that state law now requires felony offenders in the state correctional system to have their DNA analyzed and entered into the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) for analysis. Due to terms of a grant agreement with the federal government, the Crime Lab must give CODIS match analyses priority over the lab’s other cases.
Case Management Issues
Through interviews with Crime Lab staff, PEER identified several case management issues that could affect the timeliness of processing forensic requests: no system for request prioritization, insufficient communication regarding cross-over requests (i.e., a request that involves one piece of evidence that must be examined by more than one forensic section); incorrect submission of evidence by law enforcement entities and coroners; and lack of communication between the Crime Lab and customers regarding the need for analysis on aged cases.
The Mississippi Crime Lab does not charge fees that are commensurate with services as required by state law and has no enforcement tools available to assist with collection of fees.
The Crime Lab does not charge fees that are commensurate with services as required by state law. Presently, the Crime Lab charges $50 for each case an entity submits to the Crime Lab and $100 for each DNA sample. This flat fee per case does not take into account the significant variation in workload that exists between cases.
The Crime Lab has no enforcement tools available to assist with collection of fees. As of December 31, 2004, customers owed a balance of $593,836 in fees for forensic services provided, with $445,986 over 120 days past due. The Crime Lab uses the analytical fees to help cover operating costs, but there is no punitive measure in place to assist the lab in collecting these fees from its customers.
What is the impact of the Mississippi Crime Lab’s failure to provide timely forensic analysis?
The Mississippi Crime Lab’s failure to provide timely analysis of forensic requests may affect grand jury proceedings and jurisdictions’ compliance with the speedy trial law.
In interviews with PEER, district attorneys stated that grand juries have expressed concerns when told that evidence is still awaiting analysis at the Crime Lab and have failed to return true bills of indictment for criminal cases that did not have this supporting evidence. District attorneys also stated that compliance with the speedy trial law may be affected as a result of the Crime Lab’s failure to provide timely forensic analysis.
PEER also interviewed representatives of a sample of law enforcement entities that submitted requests to the Crime Lab from FY 2002 through FY 2004 to determine if they were satisfied with Crime Lab services. Of the twenty-six representatives of law enforcement entities, none were satisfied with the turnaround time for receipt of results. Sixteen of the representatives stated that they have used higher-cost, private laboratories in order to ensure that they could receive timely results.
Recommendations