For the sake of this discussion, think of your evidence room as a small for-profit business. As a Property & Evidence Unit Business Owner, you must ask yourself the following questions: 
 

Managing Evidence - The Vision 

Inventory Management - If you think of the items in your Evidence Room as your business inventory, then it is for all intents and purposes a warehouse for storing, preserving and managing inventory. One of the most important aspects of your business model is the proper and timely disposal of outdated inventory in your warehouse. A key measure of your success as a business owner is how quickly you can get rid of the nonessential items stored in your warehouse. 

Found Property / Safekeeping / Evidence

Each of these groups contributes differently to the total inventory in your warehouse: 

1. What percentage of each group contributes to your total inventory? 

2. What are the time requirements for storing each group? 

3. What are the procedures for the disposal of each group? 

4. Are you currently storing property from any of these groups that can be disposed of now?
  

The photo above is Shannon's starting point in organizing her Property Room.

Managing Evidence - Generating Revenue

Seizures, unclaimed property and evidence have become an increasing source of revenue for law enforcement agencies. Back in the days of auctions, you, the business owner, put in countless hours preparing this property for auction. When all was said and done, the proceeds from the auction barely exceeded your overtime hours and the auctioneer fees. From a business perspective, it wasn't the easiest way to generate revenue. But now auction websites such as www.propertybureau.com and www.stealitback.com. have made property auction a virtual online business with minimal preparation time on your part. This gives you more time to concentrate on running an effective business. 

Another resource for generating revenue is storing seized cash in a bank instead of the property room. The interest paid on that cash then becomes revenue. Civil forfeitures are another lucrative tool for generating revenue. Most states have statutes that allow for the seizure and forfeiture of property and funds involved in the purchase or sale of narcotics. Does your department have set procedures for civil forfeitures? Until two years ago, our department did not. I implemented civil forfeiture policies and procedures and in just 18 months we deposited over $20, 000 into our drug seizure fund. How much revenue does your Evidence Unit generate? How much of this is put back into your Property & Evidence Business to make the business run more efficiently and, in turn, improve its ability to generate even more revenue? Assess your evidence room as a business and determine if changes can be made to generate more revenue. 

We all know the phrase, "Time is money." In our business of property and evidence management, saving time is essential to our return on investment. The time-consuming tasks that dominate our business are entering new cases, preparing items for destruction, relocating items, and running reports. Spending less time to accomplish these tasks will lower your operating cost and will have a positive impact on your revenue model. It will have other benefits as well. You will have a smaller total space requirement for the items that need to be stored in your Property & Evidence Unit, and you will be able to locate these items faster and easier. 

Evaluate your evidence room and determine how much time it takes you on average to enter a new item of evidence into your system. How long does it take to prepare an item for destruction? How about reports? If your supervisor asked you to run a report on all the narcotics you have in evidence, how long would it take you to retrieve that information and produce the report? Now ask yourself if it is possible to reduce the amount of time it takes to do each of these tasks? The answer is yes, you can. An efficient evidence management system will drastically reduce the amount of time you spend on routine tasks. 

If you could clearly demonstrate to your Chief that you could generate revenue faster and significantly improve your department efficiency while reducing liability, would he or she be more amenable to providing your department with the funds needed to make it happen? Again, the answer is yes. 

Managing Evidence - Return on Investment 

As a Property & Evidence Unit Business Owner, you have customers and stakeholders who look to you for a return on their investment. These people may include prosecutors, citizens, defense attorneys, police officers, and police administration. Generally, they want from you an immediate, accurate response. They want high quality performance on a low budget. So how do you measure return on investment? The more people you satisfy, the greater the return on investment. On the other hand, the consequences of mismanagement can be potentially disastrous: unsuccessful prosecution; embarrassment to the police department, loss of  public confidence, civil liability; personnel problems, or claims against the agency. A voiding these negative results is another measurement of your business's return on investment. 

Which of the liabilities above would have the most immediate impact on your business? Is there a way that you can reduce risk and improve the return on investment for your stakeholders? Minimizing the chances of human error, having answers at your fingertips, generating automated chain of custody tracking reports, and providing up-to-the-minute status information is the answer to return on investment. 

Managing Evidence - Improving the Business Model

Bar-code technology has revolutionized the way retailers manage inventory, reduce cost of operation and improve profitability. Products like the EvidenceOnQ^TM - Property & Evidence Management System, developed by FileOnQ, Inc., in Seattle, Washington, are revolutionizing the way law enforcement agencies are managing property and evidence. However, a system will be of no value unless it is used. 

There are many CADIRMS systems that include evidence modules installed in hundreds of law enforcement agencies in the U.S. and Canada that are not being used. Why? Because they are inflexible, they don't conform to the processes and procedures of managing property and evidence. They don't provide adequate security protocols, and they are not robust enough to provide real value. The majority of the effort in the design of these programs goes into the CADIRMS function. The property module is simply a garnish that is not designed for the specific needs of property and evidence management. It is designed by companies that understand technology, but do not understand how to manage property and evidence. 

Before you embrace any technical solution for your property and evidence unit, you should ask the vendor the follow questions: 

1. Is the system user-configurable? 

2. Can I define the system's screen field labels, attributes and functionality so that it mimics my work flow processes? 

3. Does it support advanced bar-code technology that will allow me to assign bar-codes to locations including people, boxes and storage areas, as well as items, so I can identify the location of any and all items by person or place located? 

4. Can I design and print my own custom bar-code labels with any information I choose? 

5. Can the system provide a detailed, defensible chain of custody report quickly and easily by item and/or case number for any and all items? 

6. Does the system provide advanced inventory and audit support that will significantly reduce the amount of time that it takes currently to perform these duties? 

7. Can it track digital information such as digital images, video, sound clips, signatures, and electronic documents, as well as physical items? 

8. Does the system provide an automated, solution for item purging and destruction?  Can I assign destruction dates and send automated reminders to detectives, prosecutors, judges, etc.?  Can I add notes, assign review dates and place holds on items assigned for destruction?

9. Can I easily import and export data to and from other systems? Is it easy to transfer the data in my existing system to the new system?

The photo above shows the main storage area of Shannon's Property Room after her reorganization. Would this be a more enjoyable place to work? Note that the same shelving has been utilized, but much more efficiently. 

10. Will it work with my existing CADIRMS system? 

11. Can I make queries and easily produce reports on any field or combination of fields in the system? 

12. Can we implement the system in days instead of weeks? Do you provide onsite and distance training? 

13. Is the system Web enabled? 

EvidenceOnQ^TM is a Property & Evidence Management System designed to provide Law Enforcement Agencies with a complete automated solution to manage the full life-cycle of stored property and evidence: physical as well as digital information. From a cost justification perspective, EvidenceOnQ^TM delivers the shortest time to an appreciable return on investment of any system on the market today. 

After researching several evidence management systems, our department chose EvidenceOnQ^TM as our property management system. It is the only system that was able to answer YES to all the above questions. It has been the key to our success and efficiency in our evidence unit. 

I encourage you to learn more about EvidenceOnQ^TM and how it can help your agency gain control of its property and evidence unit. You may contact them at 800-603-6802 to schedule a live web demonstration. 
EvidenceOnQ^TM enabled our department to improve every aspect of our property and evidence business model; it helped us meet our vision, increase revenue, and showed an immediate return on investment. 

About the Author: 

Shannon Turner started her Property Room reorganization project in January. Since then she has destroyed over 700 items and relocated 6,000 items to new storage locations. Because of the efficiency of the computer system, she has accomplished this project by herself. In the meantime, she worked a homicide, gave seven presentations, processed 500 new pieces of evidence, and did a gun destruction. Now that's time management! 

Shannon has worked in the criminal justice system for 23 years, and an evidence technician since 1994. In addition to managing an evidence room, she also does field work, handling over 130 crime scenes in the last six years. She gives regular presentations to local civic groups, schools, community colleges and other police agencies regarding evidence, forensics, and crime scene procedures, and serves as an instructor and adjudicator for law enforcement programs at vocational high schools.

On a personal note, Shannon is also a published author. Her book, "Miracles for Marlee" was released in November 2002. It is the account of her family's journey to adopt their daughter from China.