SANTA FE. (AP) – Something big is happening in New Mexico’s effort to fight crime.
A 44,000-square-foot, $21.9 million forensic lab for the state is being built in Santa Fe. Construction workers broke ground in February and work is set to be completed by fall 2022.
The new building will replace a much smaller lab that was built in the 1970s, said Katharina Babcock, the state Department of Public Safety’s forensic laboratory director.
“We’re looking at quadrupling the size of the lab and actually being in a building that is meant to be a forensic laboratory,” she told the Albuquerque Journal. “Everybody was able to provide input using their experience in this lab.”
The department has three labs – in Santa Fe, Las Cruces and Hobbs – that serve more than 300 law enforcement agencies. The only law enforcement agency in the state that has its own forensic laboratory is the Albuquerque Police Department.
“I think that’s really important for people to know that we don’t just serve Santa Fe,” Babcock said. “And the services that we provide are free to our client agencies.”
In fiscal year 2020, the laboratory received 17,930 items for analysis from 8,609 cases, according to the department.
The lab will continue to offer fingerprinting analysis and services related to firearms and tool marks, controlled substances and biology – which includes DNA testing.
Babcock said it’s not out of the question to potentially add more accreditation areas in the future, but, right now, that lab is looking to move into the new space under its current disciplines.
In addition to more space, the lab will also add more equipment and personnel to increase evidence processing times, she said.
“We do have backlogs,” Babcock said. “I would hope that, when we are in the new facilities with additional personnel, we will be able to manage those backlogs a little better.”
In addition to the increased space, the lab also recently implemented RFID – Radio Frequency IDentification – monitoring technology to help keep track of evidence and preserve the chain of custody, she said.
This means an officer can submit the evidence and attach a barcode to it. This way, all the lab has to do is scan the code and the information will immediately upload to the system.
Babcock also said it allows the lab to track evidence to make sure it doesn’t enter an area where it isn’t supposed to be.
“We can actually watch the movement of evidence throughout the lab and, if something were, to say, pass a critical point, an alarm would sound,” she said.
But the new space isn’t the only thing the lab is accomplishing.
Every few years, the lab must go through an accreditation process that involves a thorough and complete review of all laboratory operations, Babcock said.
The lab was recently accredited for International Organizations for Standardization/International Electrotechnical Commission standards under the American Association for Laboratory Accreditation.
This means lab operations are compliant with national and international standards for forensic labs. Accreditation is an ongoing process, Babcock said, but the current accreditation is valid until the fall of 2022.
Getting accredited during the pandemic wasn’t an easy task, Babcock said, and it involved a lot of virtual meetings and paperwork deadlines. Babcock noted the process was just as rigorous, if not more so, than it would have been if the accreditation was conducted in person.
“The work that we do here in the lab is very important not only to the citizens of New Mexico, but also the entire criminal justice community,” she said. “And I think that the public deserves to know that the forensic laboratory that is providing services throughout the state of New Mexico is operating at the highest level.”
