Last month D.C.’s crime lab regained accreditation for its fingerprinting unit, the third of its five units to be reaccredited since all of them lost theirs more than three years ago. Without accreditation, it was harder to get evidence processed, as the District had to send evidence out to private labs, making it harder to prosecute all the cases that should be prosecuted. 

Simply put, the lack of accreditation at a time when crime was surging made it harder to convince would-be criminals they would actually be held accountable.  

I’ve been pushing on this issue for well over a year now – it should not have taken this long for the lab, run by the Department of Forensic Services, to get back its accreditation. Being able to process fingerprints is obviously a critical piece of the crime lab’s work and essential to backing up the work of police who are working to solve crimes. 

Even as the surge in crime has reversed itself, I am continuing to push on supporting prevention, policing, and prosecution, and the crime lab is one piece of that. I’m also pressing the Office of Unified Communications, which runs the 911 dispatch center, to staff up, improve training, and fix disturbing delays and dangerous mistakes. 

I’ve also reintroduced two pieces of legislation from last Council Period – one to assist recruiting for the police department (my CADET bill) and one to make it easier to close homicide cases via stronger witness support (my Case Closure and Witness Support Amendment Act).