Introducing ProPublica’s DNA Backlog Tracker: Five Labs, Five Backlogs
“One of the biggest problems facing the criminal justice system today is the substantial backlog of unanalyzed DNA samples.”
—A 2003 Bush administration statement about the “President’s DNA initiative,” a five-year plan to, among other goals, eliminate backlogs of untested evidence.
In 2003, the Bush administration declared war on the DNA backlog.
Attorney General John Ashcroft announced that the U.S. Justice Department planned to spend about a billion dollars to eliminate it. The effort, the Justice Department said, would help crime labs swiftly identify murderers, rapists and other dangerous criminals so they couldn’t strike again.
The administration promised that the backlog would be gone in five years, a period that will expire this year.
But today, at least 350,000 samples from murder and rape cases—many of them involving sexually abused children—remain untested in crime labs nationwide, according to the federal government’s best estimates. Other reports claim the backlog is even bigger, with as many as 700,000 samples. In 2005, backlogs across the country nearly doubled.
There’s no one cause of the uptick. But in previous investigations, ProPublica has detailed how much of the surge can be traced to new federal and state laws requiring DNA samples from people convicted of—or simply arrested for—nonviolent crimes, including shoplifting. (Check out our map that breaks down DNA collection laws in various states.) Because of these laws, underfunded and understaffed crime labs are now flooded with DNA samples.
Beginning this month, ProPublica will follow five of the labs to see just how well they’re keeping up. The current backlog numbers at the five are recorded below (and in this chart). Every month, we will update you on each lab’s progress—or lack thereof.
| Crime Lab | Current Backlog |
|---|---|
| FBI | 293,000 DNA samples |
| Los Angeles Police Department | 5,008 rape kits |
| California Department of Justice | 53,590 DNA samples |
| Illinois State Police | 1,227 DNA cases |
| Virginia Department of Forensic Science | 1,038 DNA cases |
See the full chart for more information on the labs’ DNA backlogs.
The five we chose—the FBI, the Los Angeles Police Department, California Department of Justice, Virginia Department of Forensic Science and Illinois State Police—represent a mixture of state, local and federal labs. Several were examined in our previous backlog stories. Some have unusually large backlogs or are located in states that recently expanded their DNA collection laws. (See here for our method in choosing each lab).
We’ll keep tracking these labs until their backlogs are cleared, as the federal government promised would happen. We expect to be at this a while.
In the meantime, if you want to suggest a lab for our list, shoot us an e-mail and let us know.
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1 comments
Jan Burke
June 11, 2009, 6:56 p.m.
I am happy to see ProPublica give attention to the important issue of backlogs in crime labs, an issue the Crime Lab Project has been concerned with for several years now. The article above leaves me with a few questions.
First, as the National Academy of Sciences recent report, “Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States,” points out, there is no one definition of the term “backlog.” In general, each lab defines the term for itself. Some consider a request for evidence backlogged after 90 days, some after 120, or other lengths of time.
One lab avoided backlogs by refusing to accept more than four cases per month from each jurisdiction it served. That was the number the lab then had the capacity to process. But is that a better lab than one that accepts evidence and holds it until it has the resources to process it? Have you determined how each of the labs you are following manages these cases?
Some departments have not trained (often because of a lack of resources) those who process crime scenes, leading in some cases to gathering DNA evidence that will not be useful, or gathering multiple samples when fewer would do. This can create backlogs.
You are concerned about the impact of processing DNA samples from a wider group that convicted felons on the labs. Yet you seem not to consider that not all of these labs will be responsible for processing those samples under the laws of their states. While the widening of the DNA database in California might have an effect on the State Lab, will the LAPD be responsible for any of those tests? The jail workers may have the responsibility of collecting swabs, but unless I’m mistaken, the burden of processing those samples will fall to the state, not the city.
Backlogs in processing rape kits and evidence from crime scenes are one kind of backlog. CODIS backlogs for entry of samples from those required to give them are another. Because DNA (like most forensic science) works by comparison, the two are related, but are not the same thing.
The problems that have caused a failure to eliminate backlogs are more complex than your study, at least as described here, suggests. If a case is about to go to trial and a suspect is in custody, most labs will be asked to process those cases before cases with unknown suspects. Limitations put on hiring, facilities limitations, time required for training, the need for current staff to train new hires, and attitudes toward rape cases—all of these are just a few of the factors involved in the creation of backlogs.
DNA backlogs are only one type of backlog, and at times the focus on funding DNA obscures the importance of testing other types of evidence. Again, it is good to see attention being given to DNA backlogs, but I hope you will look at some of the other challenges facing forensic science in the U.S., including other kinds of backlogs.
Yours,
Jan Burke
Director, The Crime Lab Project
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