Ohio Attorney General Inspects Crime Lab

It’s a com­mon, and usu­ally valid com­plaint. Crime labs that were built 20–30 years ago haven’t been scaled up in pro­por­tion to the size of law enforce­ment per­son­nel, the increase in the types of foren­sic ser­vices avail­able, and the increased demand juries have for foren­sic evi­dence in trials.

There are three solutions:

1) The pub­lic fund their state/local crime labs, regard­less of the incred­i­ble expense.

2) The pub­lic not fund the crime lab, rather pay for evi­dence to be “out­sourced” to pri­vate labs. In thus sce­nario the pub­lic crime lab becomes VERY expen­sive evi­dence ship­ping locations.

3) More effi­cient and account­able pri­vate labs are con­tracted to ful­fill pub­lic needs.

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine toured Hamilton County’s crime lab Wednesday and saw first­hand what county lead­ers have been say­ing for two months — it’s cramped and out­dated and that’s slow­ing down the process of crime scene evidence.

The tour was hastily arranged after Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters and Hamilton County Commissioner Greg Hartmann told DeWine, the state’s top law offi­cer, about prob­lems at the crime lab early Wednesday dur­ing a fundraiser for the attor­ney general.

DeWine told Hamilton County Coroner Dr. Anant Bhati his office would work with the county on a tem­po­rary solu­tion, pos­si­bly stor­ing evi­dence that has to be retained by law. That would free up space for lab employ­ees to do their work with­out the risk of cross con­t­a­m­i­nat­ing evi­dence, Bhati said.

“There are clearly phys­i­cal chal­lenges in the lab,” said DeWine who was elected attor­ney gen­eral in November.

Read more on Cincinnati.com.