FY17 DNA Backlog Reduction Program - City of New York, Office of Chief Medical Examiner

The Office of Chief Medical Examiner, Department of Forensic Biology, serves as the public forensic laboratory for the City of New York and provides serology and DNA testing on thousands of case submissions every year.

In 2016 a total of 39,943 DNA samples were extracted, with STR profiles generated, analyzed, and reviewed. As a result, the Department uploaded 7,201 profiles into CODIS. During the same year there were 1,057 cold hits to offender matches, 423 case-to-case matches and 497 conviction matches.

To better serve our customers in the criminal justice community the Department of Forensic Biology's 2017 goals are to increase the current capacity and reduce the turnaround time and case backlog to 30 and 500 respectively.

The lab has a current backlog of 1,405 and an average year-to-date turnaround time of 47 for all case types with approximately one month for homicides and sexual assaults. The Department has made significant progress within the last couple years towards this goal but with the increased in cases received in the laboratory, funding is needed to process the additional cases. The FY2017 DNA Capacity Enhancement and Backlog Reduction (CERB) program proposal aims to achieve productivity and timeliness of DNA testing by focusing on the following actions:

• Increase available staff hours through overtime;

• Purchase of supplies; and

• Continue to fund previous grant-funded positions.

The goal is to further reduce backlog and turnaround time in half within the 24 months of this grant period through process improvements and continued overtime and supplies funding.

nca/ncf