State Approves Funds for More Staff at Beleaguered Meriden Crime Lab

This article first appeared on Meriden Patch.

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy announced Thursday that the Office of Policy and Management has authorized funding for more staff at the state's crime lab in Meriden.

“I’ve been clear that the disarray at the State Crime Lab is unacceptable,” Malloy said in a statement this afternoon. “People in Connecticut need to know that if they are the victim of a crime, their evidence will be reviewed professionally, thoroughly and in a timely manner.”

The forensic lab at 278 Colony St. in Meriden has come under fire in the last few months for delays in analyzing evidence in sexual assault cases and other issues. The lab processes rape kits for the entire state.

The lab lost accreditation in August following a July federal audit that raised concerns about the its supervision, data security, quality assurance and other issues, according to the Hartford Courant.

A Sept. 1 legislative report further exposed a major backlog in the lab's turnover of rape kits, reporting that as of Aug. 29, 2011, there were 205 rape kits at the facility awaiting processing. "If the lab received no more kits for the next six months, it could eliminate its backlog," the report said. Another 40 kits were processed as of Aug. 29, but still required DNA analysis – which could take another five months.

Malloy blamed a major increase in workload at the lab and staff reductions in the recent years for the delays. According to his statement, the overall workload at the lab has gone up 25 percent since 2005 – with the volume of DNA evidence testing increasing by 400 percent – but the number of scientists at the lab has decreased by 10 percent.

Connecticut's backlog was the worst in the nation last year, according to the statement.

Turnaround times on a sexual assault case where only a rape kit was submitted was 6 months on average, according to the legislative report. Adding other evidence pushes completion to a year on average. Of more than 30 state labs who responded to the writers of a 2010 legislative report, only Rhode Island had processing times as slow.

According to the statement the new positions are:

• One Assistant Director – Previously, the lab had one Director and two Assistant Directors. At this time, there is a Director, but no Assistant Directors.
• One Temporary Retired Worker (TRW) Forensic Science Examiner – A retiree will be brought back to train a Hartford Police Officer that will work in the Firearms Testing Unit for three to four years through a partnership with the City of Hartford.
• Four Durational Forensic Science Examiner 1 (FSE1) positions – These positions will help retest 3,032 DNA kit samples to ensure accuracy and will be needed for three years until that re-testing is completed.
• Six Connecticut Career Trainees (CCT) – These CCTs will take the place of State Police Troopers currently doing the work at the State Crime Lab. Some number of troopers will remain at the lab to train the CCTs for a period of time before being reassigned to State Police duties.

“These positions will immediately help make progress in cutting through the backlog and completing the retesting necessary to restore our state’s Crime Lab to the status it once was,” said Michael Lawlor, Undersecretary for Criminal Justice at the Office of Policy and Management in the Governor's statement.

Local rape crisis and domestic violence advocates lauded Malloy's decision Thursday.

"It’s huge," said Sharlene Kerelejza, Executive Director of Meriden-Wallingford Chrysalis, a center for abused women and children. "I’ve been at hospitals with victims, holding their hands. The nurses are awesome, but it’s a horrible process to go through right after a rape. The least we can do in honoring them is process those kits."

Kerelejza worked in rape crisis with the Women and Families Center on Colony Street in Meriden for 15 years before joining Chrysalis. She said women's advocates have been working for the last 30 years to get rape cases processed quickly and correctly – including teaching nurses best practices when conducting the exam, getting Police to pick kits up from hospitals to not break the chain of evidence. The cause has come a long way on those fronts, but processing times have still lagged – more time for serial rapists to be out on the streets, Kerelejza said.

"I could cry, I’m so happy. Having a governor who really is passionate about women's and children's issues is a relief," Kerelejza said. As for processing the kits, "I think for so many victims of sexual violence, it's their only chance at justice. For some victims – justice and peace of mind go hand and hand."