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Forensic DNA Education for Law Enforcement Decisionmakers

Limiting Duplication of Services and Tasks

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Limiting Duplication of Services and Tests

illustration of 3 office buildings with DNA strand over top
National Institute of Justice (NIJ) (see reuse policy).

Agencies and laboratories may inadvertently duplicate services. For example, some agencies or health care facilities conduct preliminary and/or confirmatory tests for the presence of biological material, but do not inform the laboratory that the tests were conducted or of the results obtained.

Notifying the laboratory of this information means analysts could proceed directly to DNA testing, thus shortening the overall analysis time. Training first responders and victim crisis center personnel on how evidence is processed at the laboratory may help remedy this unnecessary duplication of effort.

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