The vanderburgh county high tech crimes unit (VC-htcu) is a subset of the vanderburgh county prosecutors office

The Vanderburgh County Prosecutor's Office was awarded a $350,000 Project Grant under the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) Program (CFDA 16.738) by the U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Assistance. The grant funding will be used to establish an internship program for the Vanderburgh County High Tech Crimes Unit (VC-HTCU), which provides digital forensic investigation services to 40 law enforcement agencies across 11 states. Additionally, the grant will support research to capture the impact of the VC-HTCU on prosecution efficiency and effectiveness, as well as enable the acquisition of new technologies that the county cannot currently afford to sustain. The award has a performance period from October 1, 2024 to September 30, 2026.

The VC-htcu is a seamless channel for processing, reviewing, and implementing key pieces of digital forensic evidence into higher conviction rates. The VC-htcu is not only a vital unit for the vanderburgh county prosecutors office, but the VC-htcu has provided digital investigation services to agencies including the united states secret service, FBI, and the evansville police department. This unit has grown very quickly and enjoyed great success, but IT has not yet resolved the issues of sustainability of personnel and funding. There is a critical GAP in that the unit has encouraged the growth of talented interns, two of which have joined the unit, but there is not yet a more formal and funded process to ensure the continuation of an intern program and a stream of new criminal investigators that could be utilized to work in the unit or other units. The vanderburgh county prosecutors office is seeking additional funding through the BJA to establish the VC-htcu internship program to better equip the next generation of law enforcement, fund research through the local universities to capture the extent of which the VC-htcu has made prosecutions more efficient and effective, and cover technologies which vanderburgh county cannot yet afford to sustain.