U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government, Department of Justice.

NCJRS Virtual Library

The Virtual Library houses over 235,000 criminal justice resources, including all known OJP works.
Click here to search the NCJRS Virtual Library

Survey of DNA Crime Laboratories, 2001

NCJ Number
191191
Author(s)
Greg W. Steadman
Date Published
January 2002
Length
8 pages
Annotation
This report presents findings from a survey of publicly operated forensic crime labs that perform Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) testing.
Abstract

Reports findings from a survey of publicly operated forensic crime labs that perform Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) testing. The survey is a follow-up to the initial survey of DNA crime labs in 1998. The survey included questions about each lab's budget, personnel, workloads, procedures, equipment, and other topics. Numerical tables present workloads in terms of known subject cases, unknown subject cases, and convicted offender DNA samples. Data were obtained from 110 of the 120 estimated known DNA crime labs. The report compares findings to the baseline data from the initial survey.

  • In 2000 DNA crime laboratories received about 31,000 subject cases, an increase from almost 21,000 cases in 1999.
  • Forty-five percent of laboratories reported contracting a private laboratories to do forensic DNA testing in 2000.
  • At the beginning of 2001, 81% of DNA crime laboratories had backlogs totaling 16,081 subject cases and 265,329 convicted offender samples.