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DON’T CUT CRIME LAB SERVICES |
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Thursday, 25 February 2010 |
If you or a member of your family were robbed or assaulted or otherwise fell victim to crime, wouldn’t you want law enforcement to do everything in their power to find the ones responsible and bring them to justice in a quick and timely manner?
I’m sure most everyone would answer yes to that question, and that is why it is so important not to follow through with the proposal to cut back on basic TBI forensic services as the state seeks to balance its budget.
Public safety is the top priority of local, state and federal government, and, to that end, the TBI crime lab is a major link in the criminal justice chain. Without this important link, law enforcement agencies all across the state will be hampered in processing evidence needed to support their court cases and the public safety will suffer. When I first took office, the TBI lab had such a backlog, prosecution of local cases were sometimes held up for months or even years as evidence waited to be processed. TBI Director Mark Gwyn has done an excellent job in significantly reducing this backlog by hiring more forensic personnel. Cutting back on forensic personnel now will only bring that logjam back.
It is extremely rare and often impractical for a local law enforcement agency to have their own crime lab because the operating costs are so high and quite often local labs simply duplicate services that have traditionally been provided by the state. For this reason, local agencies all across Tennessee rely heavily on the TBI crime lab to conduct all types of lab work to help prosecute crime. Some of these services include blood/alcohol analysis to help convict suspected drunk drivers, drug identification services to help convict suspected drug dealers, fingerprint identification services, fiber analysis services, DNA testing and other tests to help identify and convict all types of thieves, burglars, robbers, rapists and murderers. It is a critical responsibility of state government to provide these lab services to local agencies.
If the state begins reducing forensics personnel or charging local agencies like the BCSO for their lab services, we may be forced to cut back in other vital crime fighting areas that are already very lean. We may have to request additional funding from the Bradley County Commission to cover the costs passed onto us by the state or the costs of outsourcing our lab requests. Another possibility is we may be forced to cut back on our lab requests, which in essence means cutting back on our local crime fighting efforts, something I do not support.
None of these options are good for our community as local budgets are also struggling to cope with higher costs and less tax revenue in a difficult economy. Currently, Tennessee has what is reported to be one of the highest violent crime rates per capita in the nation. The last thing taxpayer citizens of Tennessee and Bradley County need is a reduction in crime fighting services. We have recently made progress in Tennessee, let’s not go backward.
Not all government services are equal ~ some are more important than others. Across the board cuts, while well intended, often have unintended consequences that jeopardize the safety of people and cause governments to fail in their primary responsibility. I think Governor Bredesen has done a good job administering state budgets since he took office, but I do not think it’s wise to create an environment that hinders law enforcement, investigative efforts, a prosecutor’s ability to obtain convictions and the right of the accused to a speedy trial.
In their desire to cut waste and reduce spending in Tennessee, I urge the Governor and all state legislators to look to less vital state expenditures instead of passing the states crime lab costs on to local governments or forcing us to cut back on vital public safety services to cover our increased costs.
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