Improving forensic science integration: A Director’s perspective

Abstract

In testimony before the Presidential Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice on April 14, 2020, the author was able to make recommendations for how Forensic Science Service Providers (FSSPs) and law enforcement can work more collaboratively and effectively on domestic abuse and sexual assault investigations. This Perspectives article focuses on four key areas of those recommendations: resources, sexual assault response collaboration, forensic criminal intelligence sharing, and quality assurance.

The Laboratory System for the Idaho State Police Forensic Services (ISPFS) is a forensic laboratory system with three regional laboratories and over 50 examiners and staff [3]. The author is the Laboratory System Director for ISPFS. In testimony before the Presidential Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice on April 14, 2020, the author was able to make recommendations for how Forensic Science Service Providers (FSSPs) and law enforcement can work more collaboratively and effectively on domestic abuse and sexual assault investigations. This Perspectives article focuses on four key areas of those recommendations: resources, sexual assault response collaboration, forensic criminal intelligence sharing, and quality assurance.

1. Resources

The first key area is meeting the resource needs of FSSPs. FSSPs provide critical investigative information, identify and bolster cases against perpetrators, and exonerate the innocent. This analysis requires sufficient operating budgets, appropriate levels of personnel, and adequate facilities to complete this mission with the timeliness required to ensure public safety. As identified in the NIJ 2019 Forensic Laboratory Needs Assessment Report to Congress, FSSPs would require a minimum of an additional $640 million annually to match the present number of incoming service requests with analytical reports issued from the FSSPs [4]. The President’s budget should make an even greater financial investment in forensic science to meet the need for evidence based justice information. Grants such as Coverdell [5], and the DNA Capacity Enhancement for Backlog Reduction (CEBR) [6] must be authorized and appropriated at higher levels, and traditional grants made available to law enforcement, such as Byrne JAG [7], should be increased and made more available to FSSPs. Law enforcement investigators need more access to forensic FSSPs and disciplines for their cases. The U.S. is losing the ability to perform forensic examinations such as trace analysis because they are expensive. As a result, investigators in many instances are not trained to collect these types of evidence and courts do not have the opportunity to consider all valuable evidence that may have been available during an investigation. If evidence is not collected, forensic analysis is not performed. If forensic analysis is not requested by law enforcement, the FSSP cannot justify having nor keeping the examiner and the equipment. If FSSPs do not have examiners in a particular discipline, the officers are thereby neither trained to collect the evidence nor asked to collect the evidence because it cannot be examined without committing significant resources to a private contractor. This is a vicious cycle leading to the extinction of valuable forensic disciplines as well as not availing the court of all probative evidence in deliberating the guilt or innocence of an individual. Funding of instrumentation and personnel for these withering forensic disciples is necessary, but also the creation of national training centers and programs to ensure uniformity of properly qualified forensic examiners across the country.

Comprehensive forensic evidence collection and packaging training programs for law enforcement should be taught by forensic science examiners. Examiners can instruct officers during Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) initial training, POST continuing education, and through partnerships like the Office of Justice Programs (OJP) [8] funded Regional Information Sharing Systems (or RISS network) [9]. This spring ISPFS trained 200 officers in DNA techniques and technology by partnering with the Rocky Mountain Information Network (RMIN) [10] (part of the RISS network). The laboratory partnership with RMIN increased attendance by allowing the officers to get POST continuing education credit for attendance. The laboratory trainers were able to communicate the science in a way that was relatable to investigators working on current cases. Officers may not recognize or collect critical domestic violence or sexual assault evidence if they are not trained to identify, properly document, and collect such items. The training for officers regarding what services their local FSSP can provide and how forensic technology can help their investigation must be expanded. As technology continues to be transferred to law enforcement field applications, forensic examiners must collaboratively partner with law enforcement for training and implementation. The most successful and highest quality applications of field instrumentation for drug detection, DNA, and breath alcohol are highly coordinated with examiners for quality, reliability, and scientific validity. The National Institute of Justice Forensic Laboratory Needs Technology Working Group (FLN-TWG) is an excellent federal government resource for transfer of technologies developed by military or federal agencies to state and local examiners [11].

Further, federal and state cooperative groups should be leveraged to ensure that validation work is completed in advance of instrumentation purchases. Collaborative validations and procurement are advantageous to both large and small FSSPs. FSSPs could very much benefit from a program similar to that set up by the CDC in the “Public Health Crisis Cooperative Agreement” [12]. Under this model, validated instrumentation is available at an arranged price point for the FSSPs to obtain, rather than requiring each FSSP to perform redundant procurement and validation work. Another model would be a federal procurement program of new instrumentation that could be provided to the state and local laboratories after validation work is complete. This model would eliminate the state and local procurement issues and largely eliminate the need for resource intensive local validation studies. The nation’s FSSPs should model the CDC Laboratory Response Network (LRN) [13] where there can be more collaboration between states for validation studies and more ability to scale up resources for seamless emergency or critical response capability [13]. Currently, it is difficult for FSSPs to set up interagency MOU agreements to share resources, such as one FSSP with greater capacity analyzing cases for another FSSP with limited capacity.

It must become easier for law enforcement to ask questions of the forensic examiners in real time. This requires both a cultural change for officers and examiners to be comfortable talking to each other and technology to enable immediate communication. There are frequently large cultural differences between the scientifically based examiners and the practically oriented law enforcement officers. They are trained and educated very differently. Breaking down communication barriers and getting them to work together in real time to solve investigative challenges as they occur is the best way to operate. ISPFS is working on ways to encourage the law enforcement officers to call the examiners on their desk phones or work cell phones to ask questions about evidence collection or processing to open discussion and obtain answers the moment they are needed.

Backlogs are real and require resources to solve. Right now in this country, according to Paul Speaker and data from Project FORESIGHT, the published data demonstrates that for every 1% reduction in turnaround time at the laboratory, there is a 1.29% increase in cases submitted to the laboratory and a 3.9% increase in the number of items submitted to the laboratory [14]. This indicates investigators are limiting FSSP submissions due to limited FSSP analytical capacity, hence cases that would benefit from forensic analysis are not examined. To solve DNA backlogs, we need more forensic scientists, bigger facilities, and funding. Turnaround time is directly related to the level of forensic laboratory staffing. Increased staffing requires larger laboratory facilities. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) recommends a facility of 700–1000 square feet per forensic analyst to allow for adequate workspace [15]. Most modern state and local forensic science FSSPs have examiners crammed into all available space including closets and utility spaces. Continually adding new staff to address backlogs without addressing the laboratory facility capacity is creating bottlenecks and hampering backlog reduction.

Using tools like the FORESIGHT workforce calculator tool, developed with funding from the Forensic Technology Center of Excellence, laboratory directors can calculate how many staff are needed to produce a desired turnaround time [16]. Project FORESIGHT also helps forensic service providers become more efficient through self-evaluation of efficiency metrics and allows leaders to share information with each other about techniques to increase laboratory efficiency [17]. Achieving better analytical turnaround time speeds investigations and reduces recidivism by getting actionable leads in the hands of investigators more quickly. Controlling backlogs also requires controlling intake of evidence items. Submission policies should be collaboratively reviewed with FSSPs to determine which evidence is the most probative for an investigation and subsequent prosecution. The importance of meeting in triage teams with the laboratory, law enforcement investigators, and prosecutors participating collaboratively in the evidence selection process cannot be overemphasized. The author’s experience has been that these three groups of individuals approach evidence from very different perspectives and all must be considered in a holistic case approach that is sensitive to limited resource management. A paramount recommendation is the development of electronic data exchange between law enforcement, the laboratory, and court case management systems. FSSPs need to know, through automated means, when cases are no longer being investigated or prosecuted. This knowledge allows FSSPs to discontinue work on unnecessary cases and move resources on to the next critical case. Technology exists for court and law enforcement customers to know laboratory case status in real time. This technology should be more widely implemented. Laboratory customers should also be able to electronically review and print laboratory case reports and notes immediately after the case is complete without having to call the examiner or FSSP. Improved enterprise wide case communication saves resources that can be applied more effectively.

1.1. Sexual assault response collaboration

The second set of recommendations is for sexual assault response collaboration. Each state should have additional resources and effort dedicated to multidisciplinary state working groups. Idaho has the Idaho Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (ISAKI) group that meets several times a year to determine state policies, training needs, and potential state laws. This is a highly collaborative group working to make evidence collection, treatment of victims, law enforcement, and prosecution even better in Idaho. Each state needs more trained Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners (SANE) and ongoing additional training available for these nurses subsequent to their initial training. Trained medical personnel must collect sexual assault evidence to maintain the evidentiary value of the sexual assault evidence collection kit and provide the FSSP the best evidence to analyze. There must be more training and support for state and local Sexual Assault Response Teams (SART) with heavy engagement from FSSPs and law enforcement. More federal resources should be allocated to train Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners (SANE) and funding for state level SANE/SART coordinators to help the local programs.

Crime victims have a right to know about their case. Therefore, every state should have a mechanism to notify survivors of their kit location and testing status. Each state must have a sexual assault kit tracking system with data input by collection nurses, law enforcement, and FSSPs. Idaho has pioneered kit tracking with the first fully implemented statewide kit tracking system in the country (IKTS) [18]. To help other entities embrace kit tracking policy, Idaho makes this kit tracking software available free to any public entity. The Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (SAKI) granting program also makes funds available for entities to procure sexual assault kit tracking software and implement it in their jurisdiction [19]. Each state must perform an independent audit of how many kits they have, where they are located, and the laboratory testing status. At least 60,000 kits still exist in the US that have not been submitted for testing [20]. Laws for kit collection, testing, and retention in many states are confusing for law enforcement and FSSPs. FSSPs are often required to decide if it is appropriate to test a kit when federal law protects the right of a survivor not to report a crime, yet some state laws still require kit testing [21]. The laboratory should not be the arbiter of law, potentially violating either state or federal statute. Kits should be standardized nationally to SAFER working group recommendations to eliminate state-to-state variation of kit components [22].

When analyzing these kits, we must consider all forensic disciplines, like standard toxicology testing for drug-facilitated sexual assault, not just DNA. Almost every forensic discipline could play an important role in investigating a sexual assault and should be included when thinking about a holistic approach to kit testing. For productivity and speed, FSSPs are processing kits for DNA in an assembly line format or outsourcing kits to private laboratories. Most FSSPs are limiting the samples tested per kit. We must develop public laboratory infrastructure to process all kits, test all probative evidence in each kit, and ensure each eligible sample is entered in the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) to ensure all evidential value is gathered from each kit. Note that CODIS entry can only be done in public FSSPs, hence outsourcing must include FSSP involvement. Finally, a more robust documentation of law enforcement actions to follow-up and resolve CODIS hits generated by laboratories is needed. Far too often, these hits are not investigated due to a lack of resources or other communication obstacles.

1.2. Forensic criminal intelligence sharing

The third set of recommendations is forensic intelligence. FSSPs have an incredible amount of actionable and time relative data, as submissions from multiple law enforcement jurisdictions coalesce at a single FSSP. The recommendations of the recent OJP report on promising practices in forensic laboratory intelligence should be highly considered [23]. Data is available that is not being leveraged to predict emerging drug threats, gun crime, DUI driving trends, and so on. Focus groups should be created to develop infrastructure to share this data from FSSPs with fusion centers, HIDTAs, and state and federal agencies. FSSPs play a critical but mostly unexplored role in criminal intelligence and public health. Aggregate data including analytical results represents an exciting opportunity to keep law enforcement partners and policy makers updated in real time.

1.3. Quality assurance, risk management, accreditation, and certification

The fourth set of recommendations is related to quality assurance and risk management. Federally, prosecutors are now required to use an accredited laboratory for analysis if one exists for the purpose of the analysis [24]. Accredited FSSPs are required to follow strict management and analytical policies and procedures, providing a level of confidence to the courts of the use of good scientific practice. Since the vast majority of forensic science occurs in the nation’s state and local law enforcement agencies, the Presidential Commission should recommend that states require accreditation of forensic providers and certification of all forensic scientists. This includes recommending funding to educate, train, and competency test all forensic practitioners. Part of accreditation is implementation of evolving international and national standards into laboratory protocols. Of particular concern is accreditation in the growing world of digital FSSPs that are critical in the investigation and prosecution of domestic violence and sexual assault cases. Finally, the Presidential Commission should recommend more federal research and development funding and a federal research strategy for forensic science in the United States. Most state and local FSSPs cannot perform foundational or applied research, nor technology transfer. More must be done on the federal level to support the practice of forensic science. The federal government must support foundational research and find more efficient ways to implement validated technologies in the laboratory. Research and development has been a great benefit to investigate sexual assault and domestic violence cases. The implementation of DNA and CODIS in the last 30 years, and the emerging fields of forensic molecular genealogy, full genome sequencing, and proteomics resulted from research and development. Research and development in other areas of forensic science are equally important to generate instrumentation and techniques that are faster, increasingly sensitive, and more discriminating.

Forensic science, as performed by FSSPs every day, is a critical element in the administration of justice across the United States. Whether it is assisting to identify and convict the guilty, exonerate the innocent, or give closure to a victim of a crime and their family, the United States citizenry expects and deserves the most current, valid, and reliable forensic science.

Declaration of competing interest

The author currently Chairs the Consortium of Forensic Science Organizations (an organization representing over 21,000 forensic science examiners) [1] and is Immediate Past President of the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors [2]. All opinions are solely those of the author.

Recommendations

Resources:

• ●Data sharing mechanisms for case management systems at LE/laboratory/Courts to update case status
• ●On demand electronic FSSP case updates, reports, and case information available for customers
• ●President’s budget requires an even greater financial investment in forensic science
• ●Higher authorization and appropriation in Coverdell, CEBR, and Byrne JAG for FSSPs
• ●Funding for FSSP instrumentation in trace disciplines
• ●National training centers for workforce development in all forensic disciplines
• ●Training for officers in all forensic science disciplines for evidence recognition and collection by examiners coordinated through police training entities
• ●LE and laboratory joint technology implementation committees for forensic science in states and localities
• ●Federal CoAg groups for technology procurement, validation, and implementation
• ●Forensic Science Laboratory Response Network agreements for validation and resource sharing
• ●Direct communication for officers doing investigations to talk to examiners in real time
• ●Develop a model to “right size” forensic services in an area (laboratory size, instruments, and staff) given crime data rates and jurisdiction population
• ●Enhanced calculators to determine appropriate number of examiners for caseload and turnaround times
• ●More federal resources for state and local entities to build and expand forensic science facilities

Sexual Assault Response Collaboration:

• ●More resources for follow-up collaboration and accountability on CODIS hits
• ●Federally supported diverse state sexual assault response working group in every state
• ●More federal support for state and local Sexual Assault Response Teams (SART) and SANE/SART coordinators and trainers in every state
• ●More federal support and resources for Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) training
• ●Sexual assault kit tracking system or mechanism in every state or location
• ●Independent sexual assault kit audit in every state to determine actual scope of kit testing needed
• ●Federally coordinated sexual assault kit components to SAFER recommended guidelines
• ●More resources for collection and forensic testing for drug facilitated sexual assault
• ●Standardized recommendations for processing and testing sexual assault kits
• ●Clarification of VAWA for the testing of Jane/John Doe kits

Forensic Criminal Intelligence Sharing:

• ●Federal working groups and funds focused on forensic intelligence data sharing and collaboration
• ●Implementation of recommendations in OJP Promising Practices in Forensic Laboratory Intelligence

Quality Assurance, Risk Management, Accreditation, and Certification:

• ●Accreditation of all FSSPs and certification of all examiners
• ●Required training, competency testing, and continuing education for every examiner
• ●Federal forensic science research strategy and funding for federal research and development