The geographic location of fresno county is approximately an equal distance between the major metropolitan areas of SAN francisco and LOS angeles in the central SAN joaquin valley

The County of Fresno, California is awarded a $444,551 formula grant from the U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Assistance under the DNA Backlog Reduction Program (CFDA 16.741). The grant funding will be used by the Fresno County Sheriff's Office Forensic Laboratory to decrease backlogged DNA casework and increase capacity. Specifically, the grant will support hiring an additional criminalist, providing continued funding for another criminalist position, sending four staff members to the 2025 ISHI Conference, maintaining service contracts for DNA analysis equipment, purchasing licenses and maintenance for STRmix computer systems, and outsourcing DNA sample analysis to private vendors. The goal is to reduce the turnaround time for processing DNA evidence from 60-90 days down to less time, as well as decrease the overall DNA case backlog facing the forensic laboratory. The grant period runs from October 1, 2023 to September 30, 2025.

From east to west, the county's boundaries extend 135 miles, encompassing a geographical area of 6,017 square miles with the coast mountain range to the west and the sierra nevada mountain range to the east. Fresno county has a population of 990,204 that is expected to grow 3% annually in the future. The fresno county sheriffs office forensic laboratory provides services for the fresno county sheriffs office. The forensic laboratory has four criminalists that are trained and qualified to perform STR analysis. Due to staffing needs and the growing demand for DNA analysis, the fresno county sheriffs office forensic laboratory needs to find a way to reduce backlogged DNA casework and increase our capacity. The sheriffs office has over 10 unsolved homicide/rape cases that need to be examined for potential DNA evidence. DNA cases can take from 60 to 90 days from request to final report, due to the size of our staff and the number of samples that detectives are requesting. The forensic laboratory is seeking $444,551 in federal funds to decrease the backlog/turnaround time and to increase the capacity of cases from the DNA unit. This will be accomplished by using grant funds to add a new criminalist to the lab and for continued funding another criminalist position, send DNA four staff members to the 2025 ishi conferences, maintenance service contracts for two 3500 genetic analyzers, one EZ1 and two EZ2 robotic extraction units, two quant studio 5 realtime PCR units, 5 licenses and maintenance contracts for strmix computer systems and use funding for private fee for services vendors to reduce the number of backlogged DNA cases. The result will be a reduction in the number of days from request to issuing final DNA results to our clients and a reduction in the numbers of backlogged DNA cases.