|
The Livingston County Sheriff's Department manages, tracks, and
reports every single piece of evidence using a Property Tracking System from
Lowry Computer Products. Whenever there's a criminal action, felony, accident
report, or domestic complaint, an incident number is assigned by the Sheriff’s Office.
Any item associated with that 'incident' is also assigned a unique
evidence number. As items are received in the Evidence Room, a bar code label is
affixed that indicates the incident number, year, item number, description, and
other information. If items are checked out, such as for evidence in court or to run lab
tests, the barcode label is scanned and the new location is recorded in the Property
Tracking System.
"The learning curve is greatly reduced because of the
simplicity of the system," explains Deputy Tom Dorsey, Commander of the Evidence Room.
"Due to the reduction in paperwork, we haven’t received a single complaint
from our officers. Plus 100% readable bar codes eliminate time that clerks previously
spent deciphering hand written numbers or scribbled locations of
evidence."
In exchange for testimony from a clerk regarding the whereabouts
of evidence and its chain of custody, Livingston County now provides the court
with copies of the reports from Lowry’s Property Tracking System. These reports show
which officer submitted the evidence, when the item was logged into the system
and which clerk logged it. The report also shows when evidence is moved to a new
location.
"Eliminating the mishandling of evidence is extremely
important in law enforcement," explains Deputy Tom Dorsey. "The burden
of proving chain of custody is on the prosecution. If law enforcement can’t show where the evidence is
at all times, a claim could be made that it was mishandled or tampered with. Because of
the accuracy of the Property Tracking System, the court doesn’t challenge our
chain of custody and we reduce the number of lost opportunities for conviction related
to evidence."
When the legal process is complete, the Property Tracking System
tracks whether an item was returned to the rightful owner, destroyed, or sent
away to a third party. In the event that a case is re-opened, the tracking system helps
identify the current whereabouts of the evidence.
| 
