Sacramento County District Attorney's Office Laboratory of Forensic Services FY2022 DNA Capacity Enhancement & Backlog Reduction Program

The Sacramento County District Attorney's Office, the parent organization of the Laboratory of Forensic Services (Crime Laboratory), is not expected to be granted approval for any new growth requests for Criminalists/Analysts for the 2022-2024 fiscal years. The Crime Laboratory services the law enforcement agencies within Sacramento County, California.

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

            Goal 1:  Increase the number of CODIS eligible samples analyzed;

            Goal 2:  Reduce the forensic case sample turnaround time for CODIS entry; and,

            Goal 3:  Reduce the DNA case backlog and increase case productivity.

            Objective:  Dedicate two grant 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.

The use of grant funds would benefit victims and residents of Sacramento County, California.