Sioux Falls Crime Lab Striving for Greatness
A six-and-a-half year process has brought a major award to the Sioux Falls Police Department.
The Sioux Falls Crime Lab on March 11 earned a Certificate of Accreditation in two forensic disciplines: Controlled Substance Analysis and Toxicology which places their lab among the highest performing in the nation.
Crime Lab Manager Brad Johnson says this achievement places their lab in a select group.
"North Dakota, Nebraska and Iowa each have one laboratory that's accredited. Minnesota has eight and South Dakota now has three that are accredited."
Johnson stresses a lot of extra work went into reaching the standards because crimes don’t stop happening.
"We never shut down to move forward into accreditation. This is something that we made time for. It certainly could have been achieved a lot faster if we would have shut down production, but we did not."
Approximately 7,000 to 10,000 federal, state, and local forensic units exist in the United States. As of March 2016, about 385 of these forensic units have achieved accreditation.
There are four other disciplines the Crime Lab plans to also elevate to that status such as Fingerprint Comparison, Fingerprint Development, Crime Scene, and Serial Number Restoration.
A press release by the SFPD outlined the criteria for accreditation which include: 1) Having qualified and trained staff. 2) Properly calibrated and maintained equipment. 3) Adequate quality-assurance procedures. 4) Proper sampling practices. 5) Appropriate testing procedures. 6) Valid test methods. 7) Traceability of measurements to national standards. 8) Accurate recording and reporting procedures. 9) Suitable testing facilities.
More From KKRC-FM / 97.3 KKRC
