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Backlogs and Their Impact on the Criminal Justice System

June 2010

Evidence backlogs have been known to be an issue in crime laboratories. A recent study published by NIJ has shown that backlogs of untested evidence are also an issue in law enforcement evidence storage. This panel will discuss the issues and present preliminary findings from a study of the Los Angeles Police Department's and Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's experience with clearing out a large backlog of unanalyzed rape kits.

Transcript
Backlogs and Their Impact on the Criminal Justice System
Audio file
1 of 8: Backlogs and Their Impact on the Criminal Justice System, Gerry LaPorte, National Institute of Justice , 2 of 8: Backlogs and Their Impact on the Criminal Justice System, Joseph L. Peterson, Professor and Director, School of Criminal Justice and Criminalistics, California State University, Los Angeles , 3 of 8: Backlogs and Their Impact on the Criminal Justice System, Kevin J. Strom, Senior Research Scientist, Crime, Violence, and Justice Research Program, RTI International , 4 of 8: Backlogs and Their Impact on the Criminal Justice System, Joseph L. Peterson, Professor and Director, School of Criminal Justice and Criminalistics, California State University, Los Angeles , 5 of 8: Backlogs and Their Impact on the Criminal Justice System, Dean M. Gialamas, Director, Scientific Services Bureau, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department , 6 of 8: Backlogs and Their Impact on the Criminal Justice System, Joseph L. Peterson, Professor and Director, School of Criminal Justice and Criminalistics, California State University, Los Angeles , 7 of 8: Backlogs and Their Impact on the Criminal Justice System, Jeffrey Nye, DNA Technical Leader, Forensic Science Division, Michigan State Police , 8 of 8: Backlogs and Their Impact on the Criminal Justice System, Joseph L. Peterson, Professor and Director, School of Criminal Justice and Criminalistics, California State University, Los Angeles