FY2016 DNA Capacity Enhancement and Backlog Reduction Program

Fraud/identity theft and property crimes remain the largest proportion of crimes within the Cities of Burbank and Glendale. Property crimes compromise over 90% of UCR Type 1 crimes, while financial crimes have been the most difficult of UCR Type II crimes to investigate. The Verdugo Regional Crime Laboratory (VRCL) was founded mainly to address the demand for DNA testing of evidence recovered from property and financial crimes within these cities. The Verdugo Regional Crime Laboratory, accredited in May 2013, has assumed forensic DNA testing of all GPD cases and accepts cases from the Burbank Police Department and other regional local and federal law enforcement agencies. With access to CODIS beginning in January 2014, the Forensic Biology Unit (FBU) experienced a 4-fold increase in DNA testing requests from 2013 to 2014. In 2014, the VRCL FBU was staffed with two full-time case work analysts, a DNA Technician and a DNA Supervisor/Technical Leader. In 2015, the unit experienced the loss of a full-time casework analyst. Given the loss of 50% of casework staff, the FBU experienced an increase in turnaround time and backlogged cases. Funds will be used to acquire additional staffing to assist in evidence processing and in validation of robotic instrumentation and mixture interpretation software, allowing for increased sample capacity and reduction of backlogged cases. nca/ncf