FY 2018 DNA Capacity Enhancement and Backlog Reduction Program

An important objective of the St. Louis County Police Crime Laboratory is to provide more efficient processing to reduce, or at least maintain, turn-around-time and increase the number of forensic DNA samples processed. The Laboratory serves more than one million citizens and provides services to the St. Louis County Police Department as well as 90 municipalities, 56 of which have their own police department.

The Biology/DNA Unit within the crime laboratory has continually tried to keep up with changes in technology and increases in sample submissions which can negatively impact backlog reduction. The time for interpretation takes significantly longer per case due to complex mixture de-convolution guidelines.

Grant funding will be used to maintain two full-time biological screening positions and a DNA technician position. By maintaining the two biological screeners and DNA technician with grant funding, the DNA analysts will be able to work full-time performing DNA analysis. The St. Louis County Crime Laboratory expects to complete approximately 1,700 additional cases over the award period of 24 months than would be possible without grant funding. The laboratory expects to maintain at least an average of 60 DNA samples per analyst/per month.

NCA/NCF