The oregon state police forensic services division, as mandated by oregon revised statute 181A.150, provides scientific, technical, and investigative support to the criminal justice system through the…

The Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) awarded the Oregon State Police Forensic Services Division a $1,253,664 Formula Grant under the Comprehensive Forensic DNA Analysis Grant Program (CFDA 16.036). The grant will fund the division's efforts to increase DNA analysis capacity and reduce their backlog of forensic cases across the state's five crime laboratories. Specifically, the grant will support personnel (administrative and scientific positions), overtime, outsourcing of backlogged cases, software licenses, equipment, scanning of legacy case files, and accreditation activities. The division anticipates processing, recording, screening, and/or analyzing approximately 1,025 cases during the 2-year award period from October 1, 2024 to September 30, 2026. This project will serve and benefit the entire state of Oregon, with no sub-recipients involved.

The oregon state police forensic services division, as mandated by oregon revised statute 181A.150, provides scientific, technical, and investigative support to the criminal justice system through the forensic analysis of evidence. The division provides service to all criminal justice agencies from its five forensic laboratories located in clackamas (portland metro), springfield, central point, bend, and pendleton. Biology processing is performed in all five laboratories, while forensic DNA testing and DNA databasing is performed only at the portland metro forensic laboratory. The biology/DNA teams are consistently challenged to meet customer requests for DNA services and must continuously seek opportunities to adapt laboratory operations, alleviate bottlenecks, and increase the number of cases completed. The forensic services division requests FY24 formula DNA capacity enhancement for backlog reduction program funds to support its overall goals of increasing casework capacity and decreasing the backlog.specifically, funds will be used for positions (administrative and scientist positions), overtime, outsourcing of backlogged cases, software licenses, equipment, scanning of legacy case files, and accreditation. The division anticipates that approximately 1,025 cases can be processed, recorded, screened, and/or analyzed with grant funding during the award period. This project will serve and benefit the entire state of oregon. There are no sub-recipients.