San Luis Obispo County Grand Jury
• 2014-2015
• Agency Response
Current staffing of forensic specialists in the Crime Lab is limited to two well trained and professionals.*
⚠️ Translation Notice: This content has been automatically translated. The original English text is the official version. Translation may contain errors.
⚠️ Este contenido ha sido traducido automáticamente. El texto original en inglés es la versión oficial. La traducción puede contener errores.
Findings and Recommendations 1 findings
F1
Page 1
"Current staffing of forensic specialists in the Crime Lab is limited to two well trained and professionals." The respondent agrees with this finding. 2. "Forensic specialists are required to have extensive hands-on training which could take up to five years." The respondent agrees with this finding. 3. "There is currently no plan to obtain an additional specialist or provide back-up." The respondent partially disagrees with this finding. In regards to the additional specialist; The Sheriff's Office had twenty-five positions cut during the recent recession. The Sheriff's Office is currently working on a staffing plan for the entire department. This position will be looked at as part of the plan; however the Sheriff's Office most pressing need is in the area of patrol. The Sheriff's Office has in the past and will in the future relay on our allied Police Departments to provide assistance from their crime scene units as back-up. Administration (805) 781-4540 • 24-hour Dispatch (805) 781-4550
Related Recommendations (1)
R1
"The Sheriff's Department should hire a third full-time forensic specialist in the Crime Lab to provide additional support and long-term capability for personnel replacement." The responded agrees that it would be beneficial for the Sheriff's Office to add another forensic specialist, however first we must complete our staffing and analysis plan. This plan will prioritize the staffing needs of the Sheriff's Office as a whole. Respectfully, Ian S. Parkinson Sheriff-Coroner
* This report's PDF did not contain easily extractable text and required Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for analysis. There may be minor errors in the extracted findings and recommendations due to OCR limitations with scanned documents.