the services division for the police department. my presentation is on the sexual assault crime lab and the improvement that we have made under the chief's administration. the the crime lab is accredited by the national accrediting body that provides the best practices and inspection for crime labs so everybody that is operating in the same manner and it's required for lab to conduct testing. our crime lab currently uses four scientific disciplines for analyzing evidence. first it's forensic

biology otherwise known and dna and the second is firearms analysis and third is gunshot residue and trace evidence which includes questions documents and the fourth is forensic alcohol which follows instruments for the use and dui investigations as well as accident investigations. the scientist that we have are known as criminalist. their responsibility is to analyze evidence and providing reports and testimony and managing grants and outsourcing of dna testing. some of their other responsibilities include valid dating, calibrating and

maintaining scientific implementation and providing information to investigate oris and conducting internal audits and quality assurance management. in 2012 there were questions about -- conducted under the chief administration. we conducted an inspection of the laboratory. that's an involved process. it requires preparation by the lab staff to gather documents, records and be present and available to conduct interest interviews when the team arrives to answer questions when they are engaged in. we received new accreditation which is good

until 2015. the dna analysis -- we faced a number of challenges that were related to capacity cases that the crime lab can analyze. one of the program that we instituted in 2011 was the additional sexual assault evidence program which we call a s a p. the intent of this program is to gather the most probative evidence swab that we can get when a survivor of a sexual assault has an examination or a sexual assault kit is collected. that sample

is collected by the trauma nurses and delivered to the police department within 72 hours of collection. the strategy behind the asap program is we are trying to provide and at some point for the expedited work load for sexual assault cases where the suspect is unknown. the program that we are using s a c

program, the swabs that are collected, every kit we get at the crime lab is tested. the s a c swabs are collected. if they are negative, we still have the sexual assault kit that the hospital collects which we then proceed to test. the dna staff, we have at the crime lab is split up in two teams for the same of efficiency, for the sake of screening and analysis of evidence. we have members that are assigned to a 3 month rotation for the sac program and the idea behind that is to allow somebody to be fresh,

energized and be able to put out the amount of attention and casework related to sexual assaults. all the sexual assault kits that we receive at the crime lab are tested. one thing that is important at the crime lab is partnership. the crime lab has a special partnership with many of the entities involved with service and investigation to sexual assault survivors. we partner with a special victims unit, trauma and treatment nurses and the first tuesday of every month there was a meeting they call the sart meeting where all the stake holders involved in

this process get together and what that provides is an opportunity for people from different sides of this process to talk about what is the best way to serve the survivors of sexual assaults. when we implemented this program in 2011, we had a lot of discussion and collaboration with the sexual assault response team. the nurses, as to how the evidence was collected and one of the things we accomplished in 2011 was we created a form that all police officers give to victims of sexual assaults. that form is the sexual assault victims

rights card. it's double sided. on one side of the card we have all the information of the penal code that delineates all the rights that the victim of the sexual assault has. on the reverse sides there is information about what they can collect from the police department as well as identifying the officers who they are in the investigation. i have an example of a sexual assault case. the march 2nd. the kit is collected at the hospital. two days later that kit arrives at the crime lab. the following day biological screen is completed and dna is

started. on the 12th the analysis report is completed and the report submitted for technical review. on the 14th, the technical review is complete and by notice by way of a report is september to svu. on the 15th, that swab was entered into the national data base. it's searched every week. once we enter a profile for an unknown suspect it is searched weekly. we have a record and number of how many upload that we put into this for different periods. i can't provide you with a number of hits or matches because there are times one sample, one profile will hit to one individual, but that individual could have been

uploaded in other cases and other jurisdiction. it could have samples from previous arrest. it would have more than one hit. that number would not really tell the entire story. after that profile is entered on friday, the search is conduct over the weekend. on monday our crime lab gets e-mail notification of a match. that information is forwarded to the inspector and ultimately it results in the arrest of a suspect on april 2nd, 2013. >> what is coat us stand for. >> it's the combined -- i want to get you the information. big moments call for big response.

the purpose of code us is there is a national data base that is monitored, not monitored that is exiled compiled by the fbi and purpose is to enter sexual assault profile cases from property crimes, homicide so that if an individual isn't identified locally by witness es or other investigative tools in many cases a burglar who has done this before, has been arrested, the profile is contained in that data base. now what i didn't tell you initially, i will tell you right now which is this here is a very tight perfect world

example. the process to get to this stage is very complicated. the dna analysis of evidence out at the crime lab is not as straight forward as a let news test. the police report and often with the investigation that is required and the second part is screening of evidence, physical evidence, swabs to determine if there is any biological material present that can be tested. we move on to extraction, amplification and then finally a report has to be written. that report undergoes a peer review. once a criminalist completes a report one of their peers is task with viewing it. some of those reports can be hundreds of

pages long. there is calculations in there. someone with a college degree could hope to sort out. after that is done t report moves on to one of our supervisors who does the technical review, so basically a second check. once all of that information is confirmed, a report can be issued to the investigator. so in the case where we have a match, code us will have a profile on record and we have a different number of markers alleles that are coin attained -- in the helix. the folks who work at the crime lab all scientist have a very methodical scientific approach to everything. this is not work

that can be rushed. so what happens is that once we get a match from code us that has to be received, we have to look at the information we have that we entered in this case 3 days before, before we can report back to the inspectors. this is our goal. this is what we are striving for at the crime lab. this chart shows the number of sexual assault cases that we have received out of the crime lab. again collecting number from the group of criticismist criminalist in our lab reports. they want to get the most correct true answer they can give you. these are the number of cases that we got. but what

you have to consider is that with every sexual assault case there can be multiple request. every case has a different level of complexity. we can have a sexual assault kit where we get an asap swab and we get a match and there is no need to proceed to other items. we have that match and they can get to special victims that they can follow-up on and possibly make an arrest. our crime lab like any other crime lab in the country has a challenge of capacity. there are only so many cases that a criminalist can do, even that number which is 60 also requires some explanation which is if i had 60 burglary cases or 60 case if

i had a suspect with a gun. they get a swab, we swab the gun and we get a reference sample from the suspect, two swabs. that's as straight forward that a dna gets. in a sexual assault, we can have up to 20 swabs in a sexual assault kit, we can have bedding, undergarments, other physical evidence that has to be tested, so with a number of evidence we get, we have to do the most that we can with the resources that we have. this chart the lower dark blue bars are sexual assault cases. the taller bars that we got from the dna analysis that we do at the laboratory. the little numbers are included in the bigger bars. so we have 441 request from 2010. 539 from 2011 and

this year we are up from 264. if you do any kind of review or searching on the internet or talk to any of the scientist that we have from a number of california association of criminalist or other professional working groups, the training they go to, are everyone will tell you there is one truism in this profession and that is the demand for dna analysis has increased exponentially with the public knowledge of this science being available. there are many cases where the majority of cases where the system district attorneys, d. a.'s office request this evidence because they know that jury 's demand it. they go into a courtroom they expect to see dna evidence.

one of the challenges that we face is a number of criminalist that we have. in 2010 we had 3 criminalist that were available to do independent casework and one supervisor. that's four people. that year we had 441 request for dna. what you have to consider about criminalist is like police officers, there is a training period and a probationary period. the criminalist have a philosophy that speed kills. there is no, while the chief was able, as you can see through 2012 to expedited hiring. there is no way to expedited an individual's training. we have the guideline that mandate the type of training and efficiency

that criminalist have to demonstrate when an individual is eligible they can be signed off to do independent casework. the last part, from 2010 we have 3 and 1 and today we have 2 supervisors and 13 criminalist. the lead supervisor she's part of a lot of working groups from one of the training seminars she went to. she go the the idea of creating two teams. you have a group of people doing screening and moving on to the group of criminalist who do the dna analysis, the quantity fiction and amplification. the increase in the numbers that we have is going to increase the amount of cases that we can turn around at the crime lab. this year we are hoping to add to our staff

again by four criminalist. the polls that we have for the crime lab we are going to add two supervisors and criminalist and continue the regime that we have with three individuals that we have 3 entry level criminalist and they can move on to the next step and do independent casework. i know some of the commissioners have been out to our laboratory, one of the things we have done to increase capacity, we are adding bench space so

criminalist can have their own work spaces. when we have new people come in they need space to work. adding space in the lab is going to make it easier. we are going to convert it to laboratory space. we've partnered with the department of public works for a new building project that is going allows allow us to have a central location for services and we are continually trying to expand technology for efficiency services. we had an instrument this large with a monitor that you would see on a desktop, not similar to what you have in front of you now. the speed and quality of the thing is 10-20 than this older instrument that we have present.

this last slide again, partnership with community, what we do as members of the police department is important to people at the crime lab as well. last year, one of the women who work in dna lab came forward and said there is a walk being organized by san francisco women against rape, a fundraiser awareness walk. i think we should get a team together and go out there. that's what we did. we've done that for the last two years. and the response was big. the reason i put this in here is that the folks that you see here and i wish i did a better job of representing them this evening. these folks could work in any different enter enterprise with a scientific

training that they have and with many degrees that is you are pass the qualifications where they work. they have the opportunity everyday to have a positive effect on someone's life and that's just demonstrated through this slide here. >> thank you very much. >> i know you have been at the crime lab for about two years now? i have to say this issue came before the commission back in 2010 and that became the pet project of former commissioner jim hammer as a former prosecutor and we heard of a

backlog. if there is a backlog at this point? >> i can answer that question. i have to tell you on behalf of these individuals because i know they would want me to tell you this that defining a backlog is a difficult thing to do in this industry. among different labs they have different definitions of what a backlog is. the national institute of justice says that a backlog is any case that has not had evidence submitted to a laboratory in the last ninety days. in the sexual assault case the oldest we have is from march 13th. >> we have a csi audience. i know your chemist have taken a

long time with peer review and there is checks and balances and efficacy and in fact there is lawyers who spend their whole career attacking dna. there is folks to know that these results don't come easily and they have to be solid and there is a requirement about what the match has to be. i want to thank your employees because they are work ends up on the stand and it's a very important piece of evidence. i want to thank your staff for that and thank the chief because in 2010 we had 4 criminalist and in 2013 we have 19. that is a huge huge difference. the public deserves that. there is no reason it should take any time to have these rape test kits tested and get the suspect as soon as possible. i know that's expensive but that's part of what the police department does and i want to thank you for that change. it's incredible.

>> i just want to do have tail on the point that you made which is very strongly to the commissioners in the audience. the crime lab we had in 2010, is not the same crime lab today. that graph doesn't demonstrate all the improvements that have been made out there. with new blood comes new moral and there is a rein invigorated spirit and that comes through with that slide with the participation sf walks and we have a youth engagement program where we have criminalist having presentations for high school kids who come out, the smart well versed people in the sciences in their schools and we have presentations about that. there are people that are

very curious about this and like you said, it is sort of the csi generation and people are very curious about how these things go. we try to be as receptive as we can to try not to disrupt the work flow. when we talk about the backlog, we reached out to several of our bay area partner laboratories to try to garner this information and they are not set up to capture that kind of data and the complexity of the different cases, the nature of the cases being very straight forward and complex, it's hard to put a target or a number on them. >> thank you very much, captain. you did a great job out there. >> commissioner kingsley.

>> sergeant prea. it was excellent. thank you very much. >> you didn't catch me at my best. sorry. >> you did a very fine job. thank you to your staff. i just want to echo the president's recognizing the chief in foresight in making this a priority in terms of increasing the staff at the lab and in supporting the fine work at the lab with this extra staffing and funding. the outsourcing that you reference, what is being outsourced at this time? >> the outsourcing is part of our backlog strategy which is a two prong approach. first is we have federal backlog production grant money. the nia has given

over $400 million for backlog because this is a situation that faces every crime lab. and cases which pose the greatest immediate to public safety including crimes involves violence and cases they we out source are routinely crimes against persons, property crimes, vehicle thefts. we also reluctantly on behalf of the staff out there send sexual assault cases out to our out source vendor laboratory. we have a system set up in place now where we have a cue for sexual assault cases. we have 9 criminalist in the laboratory doing independent casework. so we get a number of request

every week. once that number reaches 9, if these cases can't be immediately assigned they are out source. the strategy behind that is to reduce the amount of time that it takes the get test conducted and turned around. >> what is the difference in the statistics of how much is being outsourced now versus two years ago, for example? is that declining or because the turn around requirement is tightening? >> i think that's what is most telling is the number of capacity and request and our numbers have increased. being able to use outsourcing as a resource to use that backlog. the laboratory we use is the laboratory while we