U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs Bureau of Justice Statistics February 2000, NCJ 179104 Survey of DNA Crime Laboratories, 1998 ------------------------------------------------------------ This Bulletin is one in a series. More recent editions may be available. To view a list of all in the series go to http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pubalp2.htm#dna This file is text only without graphics and many of the tables. A Zip archive of the tables in this report in spreadsheet format (.wk1) and the full report including tables and graphics in .pdf format are available from: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/sdnacl98.htm ------------------------------------------------------------- By Greg W. Steadman BJS Statistician ------------------------------------------------------------ Highlights At the end of 1997, 69% of DNA labs had a backlog of 6,800 known and unknown subject cases and 287,000 convicted offender samples. * To alleviate case backlogs 44% of the labs had hired additional staff, 34% were using overtime, 13% were contracting with private labs, and 28% were using other methods. * The number of full-time staff in DNA labs ranged from 1 to 47, with a median staff size of 5. Three quarters of labs had fewer than 10 full-time staff. * Almost all DNA labs (98%) received cases for analysis from local police and sheriffs' offices. Sixty-five percent of DNA labs received cases from State police, 48% from medical examiners, and 43% from State corrections. * In 1997 labs received about 21,000 known or unknown subject cases, up from 15,000 in 1996. Known subject cases in both years accounted for over 75% of the total. * In 1997 labs analyzed about 14,000 known or unknown cases received, an increase from 10,000 in 1996. * The median number of cases received by a lab in 1997 was 221; the median number analyzed, 130. During the previous year half of the labs received at least 192 cases and analyzed 122 or more. * In 1997 the median number of cases received by labs with less than 10 full-time staff members was 201. Labs with 10 or more full-time staff had a median of 320 cases. The median backlog in 1997 was 50 cases for the smaller labs and 77 cases for the rest. * Labs received 116,000 convicted offender samples for analysis in 1997 and 72,000 in 1996. Less than half were analyzed: 45,000 in 1997 and 37,000 in 1996. * Labs in 17 States indicated their state criminal history records specify whether a DNA sample has been collected. In 5 states the DNA identification is also attached to the records. ---------------------------------------------------------------- As of December 1997, 69% of publicly operated forensic crime labs across the Nation reported a DNA analyses backlog totaling 6,800 subject cases and 287,000 convicted offender samples. To address this backlog, 44% of the labs had hired additional staff since 1997, 34% were using overtime, and 13% were contracting with private labs. These findings come from the initial survey of publicly operated forensic crime labs that perform DNA testing. Data were obtained from 108 labs of the approximately 120 known -- including all statewide labs. As part of their DNA Laboratory Improvement Program, the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) funded the survey to help identify workload and technology issues. Forensic Laboratory Survey While the technology available for analyzing deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) has been progressing rapidly, the U.S. Department of Justice has undertaken several initiatives to assist forensic laboratories in improving their DNA analysis capabilities. This survey is intended to provide baseline information about publicly funded forensic crime laboratories across the Nation that were performing DNA testing in 1997 and 1998. This survey was sent to approximately 140 laboratories, and 126 responses were received from individual labs and headquarters for statewide forensic crime lab systems. The responses included 108 publicly funded forensic laboratories that perform DNA testing in 43 States. For most of these forensic crime labs, DNA analysis was just one of several forensic analyses the labs performed. Three-quarters or more of the forensic labs also were responsible for controlled substance analysis, firearms/toolmark/footwear/tireprint examination, and trace analysis. About two-thirds of the labs also performed crime scene investigation and fire debris analysis (table 1). About half of these laboratories (55%) were part of a Statewide laboratory system. The laboratories were located in a variety of government agencies. U.S. Department of Justice laboratory support programs National Institute of Justice (NIJ) -- Forensic DNA Laboratory Improvement Program Authorized by the DNA Identification Act of 1994 (Public Law 103-322), the Forensic DNA Laboratory Improvement Program was created to improve the capabilities and capacity of State and local forensic DNA laboratories to support the investigation and prosecution of violent crime. NIJ's successes in this program include -- * The development or establishment of forensic DNA testing capabilities in state and local forensic laboratories to conduct DNA testing. * Improvements in the abilities of State DNA labs to meet national standards for DNA quality assurance and proficiency testing. * Fostering cooperation and mutual assistance among forensic DNA laboratories by funding laboratory compliance with the FBI's CODIS. (See page 8 for more detail about CODIS.) The laboratory improvement program is authorized to award grants through fiscal year 2000 and has received applications for funding beyond the available appropriations. NIJ has proposed several programs to continue support of forensic laboratories, DNA testing, research, and development. For more information about NIJ programs see their website at www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/. Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) -- State Identification Systems (SIS) Program The State Identification Systems (SIS) Program is a formula grant program administered by BJA with funding from the FBI. The SIS Program enhances the capability of State and local governments to identify and prosecute offenders by establishing or upgrading information systems and DNA analysis capabilities. One intended use of these grants is to improve the ability to analyze DNA in ways that are compatible and integrated with the FBI's CODIS. For answers to questions and technical assistance in completing and submitting a SIS application call the U.S. Department of Justice Response Center at (800) 421-6770. NIJ -- National Commission on the Future of DNA Evidence The Attorney General directed NIJ to establish a commission to provide her with recommendations on the use of current and future DNA methods applications and technologies in the operation of the criminal justice system, from the crime scene to the courtroom. The commission addressed 5 specific issues: (1) the use of DNA in post-conviction relief cases (2) legal concerns including Daubert challenges and the scope of discovery in DNA cases (3) criteria for training and technical assistance for criminal justice professionals involved in the identification, collection, and preservation of DNA evidence at the crime scene (4) essential laboratory capabilities in the face of emerging technologies (5) the impact of future technological developments on the use of DNA in the criminal justice system. For more information see www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/dna/. Most frequently the State police (42%) operated the DNA labs; another 25% of labs were part of a local police or sheriff's department. The remaining labs operated under a variety of government agencies such as public health and safety and prosecutors' offices (table 2). An important aspect of the laboratories' ability to perform accurate, consistent analyses and then to have those analyses used and defended in court is the adherence to accepted procedures and guidelines. One indication that a lab successfully follows the forensic community's standards is accreditation by a recognized forensic organization. At the start of 1998, 56% of the labs were accredited by an official organization, and 18% had applied for accreditation or had undergone a pre- accreditation inspection by an accredited lab. Almost all of the accredited labs (93%) had been accredited by the American Society of Crime Lab Directors-Laboratory Accreditation Board (ASCLD-LAB) (table 3). Standards for performing DNA testing involve the selection of markers, the number of tests required, and what procedures should be followed. Such standards have been developed through the Technical Working Group on DNA Analysis and Methodology (TWGDAM). The TWGDAM includes representatives from the Office of Law Enforcement Standards at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and State and Federal crime labs. Another source of laboratory standards is the DNA Advisory Board (DAB). The FBI established the DAB to develop benchmarks for labs doing forensic DNA analyses. The final DAB report was completed in February 1997 and was forwarded to the Director of the FBI for review and implementation. Every lab responding to the survey reported following some standard procedural guidelines. Ninety-nine percent of the labs follow the guidelines developed by the DAB or the TWGDAM or both. Labs reported Procedural standards using standards DAB 27 TWGDAM 13 DAB and TWGDAM 63 DAB, TWGDAM and other 3 Other 1 All labs required their examiner/analysts to perform proficiency testing and follow the TWGDAM established guidelines of testing every 180 days or less. Eighty-six percent of the labs required the technical leader or manager to undergo proficiency testing, and 33% required the technicians to do so. Although a few labs required technical leaders and technicians to perform proficiency testing only about once a year, most labs that required the testing also tested every 180 days or fewer. Ten percent of labs required certification or completed proficiency testing at the time of hiring for DNA technical positions. Nearly all labs, 97%, used a second examiner to interpret DNA typing results. Budget The laboratories ranged in staff size and budget. In fiscal year 1997 the reported budgets for entire forensic laboratories ranged from $15,000 to $14.3 million. In fiscal year 1998 they ranged from $30,000 to $16.9 million. Forty-three percent of forensic labs indicated they could identify the portion of their budgets used strictly for DNA analyses. Of the labs that reported budget amounts for DNA work, the annual DNA budget ranged from $5,000 to $3.9 million in fiscal year 1997 and $2,000 to $4.1 million in fiscal year 1998 (table 4). In both fiscal years some labs received all their funding from the State, all their funding from the county, or all their funding from the city. The main source of funding of DNA labs was State governments, providing an average 43% of the reported budgets (table 5). On average, just over half of DNA laboratory budgets were allocated for personnel costs in both fiscal year 1997 and 1998 (table 6). The next largest expenditure in each fiscal year was supplies, approximately a quarter of the budget. Staffing Ninety-eight laboratories reported their DNA staff size (table 7). The DNA labs full-time staffs ranged from 1 full-time employee to 47 full-time employees. The 98 DNA labs employed a total of 672 full-time and 85 part-time personnel. Salaries About three-quarters of the labs used a salary schedule for the DNA technical staff, and about half used a schedule for administrative staff. Of labs using salary schedules, the starting annual salaries for examiners ranged from $23,650 to $58,000 with a median starting salary of $34,831 (table 8). Technical leader/manager starting salaries ranged from $28,000 to $66,400 with a median starting salary of $45,000. The median starting salary for an administrative manager was $49,431 with a top starting salary of $84,000. Educational requirements Nearly all labs reported having mini-mum educational requirements for technical staff. Of the labs reporting their specific requirements, 64% required a master's degree and 35% required a bachelor's degree to be a technical leader or technical manager. Examiners and analysts needed a bachelor's degree in 97% of the labs and a master's degree in 3%. Laboratory directors While some forensic crime labs with multiple areas of analysis may have a director or supervisor responsible for just the DNA section, in many labs the director of the entire forensic crime laboratory is considered the director or supervisor of the DNA laboratory. The median annual salary for a DNA lab director was $55,000. Of the laboratories reporting educational and experience requirements for their DNA lab director, about 50% of labs required the director to have a bachelor's degree, and another 36% required a graduate degree. The median required years of experience for a DNA lab director was 5 years. Workload Laboratories receive DNA samples for analysis from several different sources. Almost all DNA labs (98%) reported receiving DNA samples from local police and sheriffs' offices. Sixty-five percent of DNA labs received cases from State police, 48% from medical examiners, and 43% from State corrections (table 9). A single crime incident can involve one or more victims, one or more offenders, multiple pieces of evidence, and multiple biological samples for testing. A single incident can have just a few to hundreds of possible samples for testing. Therefore, labs use different ways to measure workload, such as by -- * case, a single criminal incident or event * piece of evidence, possibly multiple pieces of evidence for a single case * sample, possibly multiple samples for each piece of evidence. While almost every lab (97%) reported counting the workload by the case, about 20% also used pieces of evidence, samples analyzed, or other measures to count their workload. Labs performing DNA analyses Unit for counting Number Percent Total 103 100% Case 100 97% Evidence 7 7 Sample 11 11 Other 6 6 Details do not add to total because of multiple responses. Types of DNA work received by forensic crime labs Forensic crime laboratories receive biological samples for DNA analysis from a variety of sources for different types of analyses. For purposes of this study, the DNA analyses that crime labs perform are categorized into two general types: casework and convicted offender samples. Casework Casework refers to cases received by a forensic crime lab which involve a criminal incident under investigation. Each case may involve multiple pieces of evidence retrieved from a crime scene, and each piece of evidence may have multiple samples for testing. Casework may involve many different types of biological samples (such as blood, semen, saliva, and hair) that must be identified, selected for analysis, and sampled from crime scene evidence. Casework is generally more difficult and time consuming than analysis of convicted offender samples. Because each case may or may not also have a subject or subjects identified as suspects, casework can be further divided into "suspect cases" and "nonsuspect cases." This distinction can change. For example, if testing eliminates all suspects, the case can be recategorized as a "nonsuspect case." For the purposes of this study, suspect and nonsuspect cases refer to whether there where any suspects at the time the case was originally received. Convicted offender samples Convicted offender samples are DNA samples collected from persons convicted of a crime, normally a violent crime or felony, that are to be analyzed and included in a DNA database. The DNA Identification Act of 1994 (42 U.S.C. . 14132) authorizes the FBI to establish DNA indexes for -- * persons convicted of crimes * samples recovered from crime scenes * samples recovered from unidentified human remains. As of June 1998, legislation had passed requiring convicted offenders to provide samples for DNA databases in all 50 States and the District of Columbia. By October 1998 the FBI estimated that States had collected approximately 600,000 DNA samples and analyzed more than 250,000. Convicted offender samples are normally blood or saliva collected from an identified offender. Ninety percent of DNA labs that receive convicted offender samples receive samples of offenders' blood, and 18% receive offenders' saliva. In 1997 DNA labs received about 21,000 known and unknown subject cases, up from 15,000 in 1996 (table 10). Known subject cases in both years accounted for over 75% of the total casework. In 1997 the DNA labs analyzed about 14,000 of the cases received, an increase from 10,000 in 1996. DNA labs also received 116,000 convicted offender samples in 1997 and analyzed about 45,000, less than half the number received. That was an increase from 72,000 received and 37,000 convicted offender samples analyzed in 1996. The median number of known and unknown subject cases received by all labs in 1997 was 221; the median number of cases analyzed was 130. During the previous year half of the labs received 192 or more cases and analyzed 122 or more of those cases. The number of cases received and analyzed varied by the size of the lab. In 1997 the number of known and unknown subject cases received by labs with less than 10 full-time staff members was 201. These smaller labs had a median backlog in 1997 of 50 cases. DNA labs with more than 10 full-time staff received a median of 320 known and unknown subject cases with a backlog 77 cases to be analyzed. Case backlog Sixty-nine percent of DNA labs reported having a backlog at the end of 1997 that totaled 6,800 known and unknown subject cases and 287,000 convicted offender samples. To alleviate case backlogs 44% of the labs had hired additional staff, 34% were using overtime, 13% were contracting with private labs, and 28% were using various other methods. Labs reporting on casework backlogs Initiatives Number Percent Total 110 100% Hired additional staff 48 44 Used overtime 37 34 Contracted with private labs 14 13 Other 31 28 Details do not add to total because of multiple responses The DNA labs that hired private labs to do DNA testing in 1996 and 1997 used the private labs mainly for convicted offender testing. Public labs sent almost 400 known and unknown subject cases and 17,700 convicted offender samples to private labs for analysis in 1997, an increase from about 330 cases and 5,500 convicted offender samples in 1996 (table 11). Data processing After completing casework analyses, 63% of DNA labs reported their results to the agency or office that submitted the case for analysis. Fifty-seven percent of DNA labs regularly reported the results to prosecutors' offices and 40% regularly reported to the investigating office. For convicted offender samples nearly all labs reported their results to a CODIS office. (See the discussion of CODIS.) One lab regularly reported convicted offender results to a sexual offender database, and two regularly reported to a State identification system. Policies and procedures for case processing To help control the flow of cases through DNA labs, a majority of labs had policies for the acceptance and processing of casework. Sixty-nine percent of labs reported having a policy for acceptance of DNA submissions. While two-thirds of the labs said they would accept any criminal cases, nearly 30% of the labs had some restrictions on the known subject cases and unknown subject cases they would accept (table 12). Nearly all labs (92%) reported having a system for prioritizing how cases are assigned for analysis. Eighty-one percent of labs assigned cases for analysis according to the cases' court dates. Half of labs started cases based on prosecutor requests and just over a third of the labs used the date cases were received (table 13). A majority, 65%, of DNA labs also had a program for looking at inactive, closed, or previously analyzed cases (table 14). Nearly half the labs that analyzed these types of old cases did so when requested by the agency submitting the case's evidence. Thirty percent of labs that reanalyzed cases had a program that analyzed cases when DNA testing was not previously done. For casework evidence, a third of DNA labs reported a policy to minimize the number of samples taken per case, such as taking only the most probative samples (table 15). Half of labs took adjacent cuttings to act as a substrate control, and 85% of labs saved DNA samples for possible retesting. Fifty-nine percent of labs attempted to notify someone, such as the agency that submitted the evidence, when retesting would not be possible because the original analysis would use all available material. Storage of DNA Most labs store samples of DNA in case there is a need to reanalyze the DNA evidence in the future. The most common forms in which labs stored DNA for retesting were extracted DNA, used by 88% of labs that stored DNA, and cuttings and swabs stored by 82% of those labs (not shown in a table). Eighty-six percent of labs that stored DNA stored it frozen, and 22% stored it ultra-frozen. The labs' capacities to store DNA ranged from 500 to 250,000 samples. On average 52% of their storage capacity was being used. Of DNA labs that saved DNA samples, about 80% stored the samples indefinitely, and the remaining labs reported storing DNA samples from 2 to 84 months. The median time DNA samples were stored by those labs was 24 months. Equipment and supplies Laboratories reported owning a total of 292 thermocyclers, mainly Perkin-Elmer models. The median number of thermocyclers for a DNA lab was two. The DNA labs reported owning a total of 183 analyzers. The most commonly owned analyzer was the ABI310, making up two thirds of all the analyzers. The next most common analyzers were the Hitachi/FMBIO (17%) and the ABI377 (11%). Each DNA lab owned from 0 to 10 analyzers with the median number of analyzers per lab being 1. While 30 labs reported that they planned to use robotics or some type of automated processing in their DNA analyses, 6 labs reported that they were currently using automation. Five of those labs reported using automation in the extraction of DNA ; five used it in separation and analysis. Four of the labs used automation in spotting or aliquoting, and two labs used it for PCR reaction set up. The forensic community is moving away from Restricted Fragment Length Polymorphism (RFLP) testing toward the newer technology of Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR). Even so, 43 DNA labs reported using RFLP for casework, and 14 labs reported using it for convicted offender samples. The DQ Alpha test kit was reported by 73 labs for casework, followed closely by Polymarker, used by 67 labs. Casework was also done by 44 labs using Profiler Plus and by 41 labs with D1S80. For convicted offender samples, 17 labs reported using Profiler Plus, and 13 labs used Cofiler. FBI-- Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) CODIS enables State and local law enforcement crime laboratories to exchange and compare DNA information electronically. All 50 states and the District of Columbia have passed legislation requiring offenders convicted of certain crimes, determined by each State, to provide. DNA samples. Analysis of those samples reveals a set of genetic characteristics, a DNA profile, unique to each individual. Those DNA profiles are entered into the convicted offender index of CODIS. DNA profiles developed from crime scene evidence, such as semen stains or blood spatters, are entered into the forensic index of CODIS. CODIS uses the two indexes to generate investigative leads in crimes from which biological evidence is recovered. CODIS software searches the two indexes for matching DNA profiles. The FBI provides CODIS software, installation, training, and user support, free of charge to any State or local law enforcement lab performing DNA analysis. For more information about the FBI and the CODIS program visit the FBI website at www.fbi.gov. The Bureau of Justice Statistics is the statistical agency of the U.S. Department of Justice. Jan M. Chaiken, Ph.D., is director. BJS Special Reports address a specific topic in depth from one or more datasets that cover many topics. Greg W. Steadman wrote this report under the supervision of Steven K. Smith. Marika Litras provided statistical assistance and review. Tom Hester and Tina Dorsey edited the report. Jayne Robinson prepared the report for publication. February 2000, NCJ 179104 End of file 1/31/02 pm 2/16/00 ih