Performing Inventories

I've personally visited over 250 property rooms and spoken with thousands of agencies, and I am surprised by how many don't conduct inventories. Many agencies openly admit that it's been years since they last conducted an inventory, or, even worse, that they've never done an inventory of their property and evidence.

In 2013, I worked with an agency that found itself the victim of an internal theft, with more than one million dollars in drugs and guns stolen by the person responsible for the evidence vault. My investigation revealed that, at no time in the agency's history, had an inventory been performed. Not only that, but they also lacked an evidence management system capable of producing a report of what they had. It was all on paper. I inquired why they didn't conduct inventories, and the answer astounded me: they didn't have a policy requiring it. My first two recommendations were to 1) implement an evidence management system, and 2) establish a policy for conducting inventories and do one immediately. I posed this question in front of a committee of elected officials for the county: "How can you effectively manage your evidence if you don't know what you have?" Let's just say there was a lot of head scratching in response to that question in addition to several proverbial light bulbs going off.

Your agency may not fall into this drastic scenario, but you may struggle to complete inventories due to a lack of staffing or insufficient evidence software capabilities. It's vital that an automated evidence management system be able to perform inventories efficiently and accurately. I'm surprised at how many systems are on the market that don't include that as a basic function; you have to pay extra for the inventory module.

I'm also surprised at how many agencies say they have a system, but they didn't pay extra for the barcoding feature, or they have it, and it doesn't work. Barcodes have been around for over 50 years. It isn't modern technology. If you have a system and the barcodes don't work, find a new one. Now.

Ideally, an evidence system should allow you to conduct inventories efficiently and accurately. The barcodes are scanned as part of an inventory project. An exception report should then provide an itemized list of items accounted for, items missing, and items that should be in a different location. Each item should also maintain its own unalterable inventory history. It does no good to perform an inventory if your system doesn't permanently document the fact the inventory was conducted.

Having an accurate record of all items in your custody is a basic element of your property and evidence management and should never be an option feature. As I said, you cannot effectively manage your inventory if you don't know what you have.