Since 1960, Long Island\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Suffolk County Police Department has racked up awards and gained national recognition, thanks to its high-tech evidence tracking system and keen focus on its continuous improvement. Ever since the tracking system was instituted in 1960\u00e2\u20ac\u201dafter the five western towns of Suffolk County, New York, decided to merge their police departments into one unit \u00e2\u20ac\u201c it has been a source of pride for the Suffolk County Police Department.<\/p>\n
Located on Long Island, about 70 miles east of Manhattan, the Suffolk County Police Department has jurisdiction over 560 square miles, protects 1.4 million residents, and collects between 70,000 and 75,000 pieces of evidence annually.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153In 43 years, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve never lost a piece of evidence,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said officer Michael Beam, the firearms and narcotics control officer who works in the Property Section.<\/p>\n
Because of its sterling reputation, the Suffolk County Property Section has earned numerous awards and national recognition. It has been featured on Discovery Channel\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Curators of Crime\u00e2\u20ac\u009d program, and is used as an example in seminars conducted by the International Association for Property and Evidence. Officials from more than 30 law enforcement agencies have visited Suffolk County to learn about how to improve their own evidence management procedures.<\/p>\n
Challenge:<\/strong> In 1988, the county became the first in the nation to implement the ACE computerized evidence management system. Processes were further automated in the 1990s when a thermal label printer was added to the system to automatically create evidence labels and eliminate the need for manual labeling.<\/p>\n In late 2002, the Property Section began tracking evidence with bar codes for the first time. As part of the transition, the department began an upgrade from its original ACE DOS-based evidence tracking software from Software Techniques to a newer, Windows-based version called WinACE, which supports bar code data entry.<\/p>\n When police officers collect evidence at the scene of a crime, they bring it back to their respective precincts, where it is signed in and locked up. Lost or stolen property recovered by officers is also submitted to the precincts.<\/p>\n Each day, the assigned officers of the department\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Property Section collect these items from the precincts and bring them to a 30,000-square-foot warehouse. More than 220,000 items are stored in the warehouse where they remain untouched until they are released, destroyed, or requested by a police officer or the district attorney\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s office. (The oldest invoice of evidence in the warehouse is from an unsolved 1931 murder.)<\/p>\n Every box, every envelope, every item\u00e2\u20ac\u201dfrom a tiny piece of glass to an item as large as a boat\u00e2\u20ac\u201dmust be labeled before being stored in the warehouse. Eleven civilian Evidence Control clerks and five police officers have the responsibility of recording evidence into the system, then maintaining records and safeguarding the evidence until it is needed.<\/p>\n Solution:<\/strong> \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The printer we were using worked great. We got all we wanted out of it and decided to get a new printer when we put in the new system,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Beam said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t take a chance on our equipment. We can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t stop collecting evidence because something goes down.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n With reliability and label quality its top criteria, Suffolk County chose the Zebra 2746e<\/a> thermal transfer printer<\/a>, which generates 4-inch-by-6-inch labels produced by WinACE software.<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Bar codes are central to WinACE. They are the keys to both accuracy and efficiency. This is why WinACE operates best with a Zebra printer,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Brian Muller, vice president of Software Techniques.<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153WinACE and the Zebra 2746e printer easily adapt to the wide variety of shapes and sizes of property by allowing for multiple label sizes. Once bar coded, the software can easily maintain an ironclad chain of custody from inception to final disposition.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n The labels include a bar code, a case number (issued by the county), and an invoice number. The invoice number includes the year (04, for example), followed by a sequentially running tally beginning with 000001 on Jan. 1 and running through Dec. 31. The invoice number will revert to 05000001 on Jan. 1, 2005.<\/p>\n The entire top half of the label displays the invoice number, so the item can be easily found once it is placed into inventory. The lower right-hand corner indicates the quantity for that lot of evidence, and the lower left-hand corner indicates where the item is being stored in the warehouse.<\/p>\n But just because there is one invoice number doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mean there is only one label to print. Some invoices do come in with only one item; others, however, can come in with hundreds of items on it. In those cases, a label has to be printed for each item.<\/p>\n For example, officers at the scene of a motor vehicle-bicycle accident would gather the bicycle, a helmet, a piece of clothing, a shoe, a watch, pieces of glass, and a wallet for their investigation.<\/p>\n All these items must be incorporated into the invoice. There would be one invoice number for all six items, and each item would receive a label and stored in a different section of the warehouse.<\/p>\n Each label has a bar code beneath the invoice number to facilitate automated tracking. Items such as a tiny piece of glass or small piece of hair are placed in an envelope with a tracking label.<\/p>\n When it is time for the evidence to be used in a trial, an official from the district attorney\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s office informs the Property Section about which items are needed. Using the bar codes, the section tracks down the evidence, which is then transported to court by either a Property Section officer or an investigator from the district attorney\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s office.<\/p>\n Evidence is signed out of the warehouse with a bar code scan, which records the transfer in the software system.<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The quality of the label is absolutely flawless. That is something you need when you present your evidence in court,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Beam, who noted defense attorneys are impressed by how clean, detailed, and organized the evidence labels look. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It makes for a better presentation when you come in with an organized piece of evidence that is labeled correctly.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n When the trial is over, the evidence is returned to the warehouse, where it is scanned to update the records and stored until the Property Section is ordered to dispose of it.<\/p>\n
\nAlthough considered one of the nation\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s best, the Suffolk County Police Department has made improving procedures for identifying, managing, and accessing the vast amount of evidence within its system a continuous process.<\/p>\n
\nItems were labeled with a dot matrix printer until 1995, when the department installed its first thermal label printer, an Eltron QB440 (Eltron International merged with Zebra Technologies<\/a> in 1998). The lone printer performed flawlessly, producing more than 70,000 labels annually, but the department decided to purchase a new unit as part of its system upgrade.<\/p>\n