Disposition Review Process

Having worked with hundreds of law enforcement agencies across North America, I have found one common struggle they all face: the review and disposition process for property and evidence. The daily intake and storage process is fairly straightforward, but reviewing evidence and obtaining authorization to purge it can be lengthy and complicated. And if your agency doesn't stay on top of this task, items will be held longer than needed and, as a result, limit your storage space. Before you know it, your property room will be busting at the seams.

It's important to establish a method for bringing evidence up for review. Ideally, you should have a good evidence management system that does this for you. Unfortunately, many agencies lack this capability, and their review processes are manual. For example, an agency I will refer to as FPD has a two-year review policy. No matter the type of crime, all cases are reviewed after two years to determine the status of the case. (This is for evidence only, not found or safekeeping items.) Their property sheets are kept in files by month and year. Each month, they pull the two-year-old file, make copies, and manually attach property disposition sheets to them for disbursement to the detective. This is an extremely time-consuming, laborious method. They also have to keep track of the forms that aren't returned and resend them the next month.

Another agency, BPD, has an evidence system that allows them to manually assign a retention review date for the case. They run a report for the items that are up for review, then manually create disposition request forms to send out. The first half of the process is good, but manually generating the form is time-consuming and repetitive. Similarly, CPD has a process comparable to BPD except their evidence system generates the disposition request forms, making the process much easier. However, if you've met me, you will know that I despise paper. I am an advocate for being paperless, and an open mind and good evidence system allows you to do so.

I worked with a state-wide agency that implemented a very streamlined, paperless disposition review process. Their evidence management system automatically assigned a review date based on pre-established criteria. When a case comes up for review, an automated email is sent to the evidence technician who then accesses the state court system to research the case. They document the disposition of the criminal case in their system, then indicate it can be sent to the case officer. An automated email is sent to that officer with information about the case and the court findings documented by the evidence technician. The officer has two options: (1) authorize for disposition, or (2) retain case pending. When the authorization to dispose is made, an automated email goes to the state-wide evidence manager, who does a second authorization. At that time, a final automated email goes to the evidence technician, who pulls the case evidence for destruction or return to the owner. You'll notice there is no paper involved in this process, and the flexible functionality of their evidence system allows them to have a paperless process while complying with their internal policies.

If your agency doesn't have an efficient disposition review process, please reach out to me, and we'll work together to develop a more streamlined process for you.