FY 16 DNA Capacity Enhancement and Backlog Reduction Program - City of Fort Worth

The City of Fort Worth seeks funding through the FY 2016 DNA Capacity Enhancement and Backlog Reduction Program to enhance services provided by the Fort Worth Police Department’s (FWPD) Crime Laboratory (Crime Lab). A total of $124,724.00 is requested to increase the efficiency of Crime Lab operations while also improving quality and timeliness of service. The primary purpose of the proposed project is to improve the capacity and reduce backlogs and turnaround times of the Biology Unit of the FWPD Crime Lab. Specifically funding is requested for the Crime Lab to meet the following objectives:
1. To provide the necessary education and training for Crime Lab personnel to gain/maintain current knowledge and standards within the forensics field, through participation in local, regional, and/or national forensic meetings, consistent with the requirements of the DNA Quality Assurance Standards.
2. To provide necessary additional DNA extraction and isolation instrumentation. Increasing the number of samples which can be simultaneously processed will result in a reduction in the turnaround time for case processing.
The Crime Lab is located in Fort Worth, TX and provides forensic services to the Fort Worth Police Department and the Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office. The FWPD Crime Lab is a multi-discipline crime lab that provides Forensic DNA testing. Key services provided by the Crime Lab include: controlled drug analyses; blood alcohol content (BAC) determinations; firearm and tool mark analyses; latent fingerprinting searches utilizing the Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS), the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS), and AFIX tracker; evidence processing for latent prints and conducting print comparisons; physical evidence screening for the presence of biological and trace evidence; and DNA profiling. In calendar year 2015, the Biology Unit successfully issued DNA reports on 158 cases which represented 454 samples. The Crime Lab is fully accredited by the Texas Department of Public Safety (TXDPS) and ASCLD/LAB (International) until August 30, 2016. nca/ncf