New York DNA Laboratory Capacity Enhancement Initiative
For State Fiscal year (SFY) 2008-2009 the New York State DNA Lab Capacity Enhancement Initiative will award approximately $4 million, contingent upon available appropriations, to eligible forensic DNA laboratories. Funding provided under this grant
program is to be used by New York State's city and county forensic DNA laboratories to enhance their ability to process DNA evidence within an average 30 day turnaround time. For the purpose of this program turnaround is defined as the amount of time that elapses from when a case arrives at the lab and a DNA analytical report is generated. Funding will be awarded based on an individual Laboratory Improvement Plan outlined within the application, the annual workload survey and past grant compliance. Funding will be made available to New York State's seven local (city and county) forensic DNA laboratories.
DNA technology has been shown to be a reliable and highly effective means to provide helpful leads to investigators in the course of criminal investigations. This recognition by police agencies has led to increased demands being placed on forensic DNA laboratories to analyze more evidence samples recovered in a wider variety of criminal investigations, including property crimes such as burglary and theft in addition to "traditional" DNA
cases such as sex crimes and homicide. It has been shown through a review of the offending patterns of suspects linked to crime scene evidence through "hits" in the DNA Databank that crimes may have been prevented with earlier detection of the evidence
links. This program is to provide funding to enhance DNA lab production capacity and thereby promote timely processing of evidence for DNA which may assist in the early identification and apprehension of criminal offenders.
