Sacramento County District Attorney's Office Laboratory of Forensic Services FY 2021 DNA Capacity Enhancement for Backlog Reduction Program

Sacramento County District Attorney's Office Laboratory of Forensic Services

DNA Backlog Reduction Project

Proposal Abstract

The Sacramento County District Attorney's Office, the parent organization of the Laboratory of Forensic Services (Crime Laboratory), is expected to experience a year in which no new growth requests for positions will be approved for the 2022-2023 fiscal year.

The Crime Laboratory has the following goals and objectives for the grant:

Goal 1:  Reduce/Improve the DNA casework turnaround time and increase case productivity. 

Goal 2:  Reduce the DNA case backlog.

Goal 3:  Increase capacity in the Crime Laboratory's Biology Section.

Objective A:  Dedicate two funded DNA analysts responsible for analyzing evidence associated with designated crime cases, profiling samples, and uploading profiles into CODIS.

The two full-time analysts will be funded to target 160 backlogged violent crime biology/DNA cases.  Each DNA analyst will be assigned exclusively to work on directly profiling forensic evidence that may contain DNA.  The analysts will be responsible for completing the analysis of the cases, uploading all eligible profiles to CODIS, and preparing the Crime Laboratory reports.  Although not all cases are expected to result in a CODIS eligible profile, the Crime Laboratory’s goal is to obtain at least 50 profiles eligible for upload.  This number is based on the number of cases completed in past years using grant funds and the number of those cases that resulted in a profile eligible for upload.