Evidence Software Knowledge

Do you use your evidence management system to its fullest capabilities? I'll go ahead and answer this one for you. The answer is NO. I've personally spoken with hundreds of law enforcement agencies and been in over 250 property rooms and I can tell you it is common for the people who work in evidence to know "just enough" about their evidence system to do the basics. They were trained by the person before them, who was trained by the person before them, and so on. Or even worse, they weren't trained at all and have had to just fumble through the system and figure it out on their own. Sadly, the problem often starts at the very beginning when the system is installed because the software vendor doesn't provide sufficient training or doesn't have personnel with specific evidence management knowledge. Don't hesitate to reach out to your software vendor and ask them if they can provide training or, at a minimum, provide a user manual for the evidence module. You can also reach out to other agencies that use the same software to see if they would like to form a user-group consortium where you can ask questions and help each other.

I'm surprised that with today's technology, agencies still have some semblance of paper documentation for their evidence. A truly competent system should allow you to be paperless, since paper can be time-consuming, repetitive, and open to human error. With many evidence management systems on the market, it's time-efficient and budget-savvy to implement an automated system.

Many agencies, or at least the command staff, have a common mindset that the property and evidence module of their CAD/RMS software is satisfactory because it is "all under one roof." The large companies that develop these applications dedicate most of their time, money, and development into the CAD/RMS functionality, which is utilized by a high percentage of the agency staff. The property module is used by a small percentage of users; however, it brings with it some of the highest liability.

In my opinion, the ideal solution is a hybrid approach that integrates the CAD/RMS system with a dedicated property and evidence system. Utilizing a system designed specifically for managing evidence will save time and increase efficiency for the entire department, not just property and evidence.

Take a short evaluation of your evidence management system. Does it possess the following essentials?

• An automated, unalterable chain of custody
• Produce forms and reports, such as letters to owners
• Barcode technology
• Has a built-in inventory module
• Assigns a retention review date to evidence
• Sends out automated notifications, such as evidence checked out too long or items that have come up for disposition review

In summary, it's vital to know what your evidence management system is capable of and become proficient at it. If you do an analysis of your system and determine it lacks specific features, it's time to start looking at other systems on the market.