Baltimore Drug Unit Goes Paperless

• NCJ Number: 196295
• Journal: Law Enforcement Technology Volume: 29 Issue: 7 Dated: July 2002 Pages: 124-128
• Author(s): Edgar Koch Sr.
• Date Published: July 2002
• Length: 5 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Best Practice/State-of-the-Art Review
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This article describes the laboratory information management system (LIMS), which contains a Drug Analysis Unit.

Abstract

The laboratory of the Baltimore (Maryland) Police Department (BPD) is required to complete analysis of a drug submission less than 12 hours after a misdemeanor drug arrest. It is estimated that it will analyze 45,000 submissions in 2002. The challenge was to develop an electronic reporting system that would be accessible to the State's Attorney Office (SAO) and police officers, and would eliminate the burden on the laboratory's administrative staff. The decision was made to transform the paper-based operation to an electronic environment. LIMS, from Data Unlimited International, provides services including latent print, drug analysis, biological/DNA, trace evidence, questioned documents, firearms, toolmarks, and photography. Some initial project goals of implementing Starfruit CrimeLab were to eliminate paper reports and case notes that required indefinite storage; and to integrate instrumentation reports into electronic case notes. Starfruit CrimeLab was customized to simulate the real-time laboratory operation by building electronic BPD worksheets and protocols. The worksheets include the entire process of evidence submission, the request for service, laboratory analysis, chain of custody, and final report. Starfruit CrimeLab generates the chain of custody documents by tracking the movement of evidence, the personnel that handled the evidence, the date and time of the movement and handling, and the resealed date and time of the evidence envelopes of drug analysis. It converts the final test result reports and the chain of custody into an electronic view-only file format to preserve the integrity of the reports during the transmission of the documents. These files are transferred to BPD Lotus Notes Case Management System, which are accessible to the officers on the BPD network and the SAO via a terminal server. Some of the advantages have been the elimination of six copies of each report, real-time access to officers and SAO, and the reduction of dozens of phone calls and emails related to non-receipt of reports.