DNA lab's slow results impeding B.C. court cases

A West Coast RCMP lab that analyzes crime-related DNA samples is slow to deliver results, sometimes impeding court cases, says a new review.

"It took between three to four months for a DNA result from the time a sample was sent to the lab," says the study of the Vancouver lab, ordered by the federal Justice Department.

"Investigators felt that the average turnaround time was simply too long, and that it could be improved upon..."

"One of the reasons provided for why this amount of time was too long was related to pending court dates where results coming after a court date would not be helpful."

The RCMP's forensic labs, which include DNA testing, have come under sharp scrutiny in Parliament in recent years, after two reports from the auditor general and one from a Senate committee found they were poorly-run and too often backlogged.

In May last year, the cash-strapped Mounties announced they were closing half their labs in Regina, Winnipeg and Halifax to trim $3.5 million a year from their budget, consolidating operations in Vancouver, Edmonton and Ottawa.

At the time, a spokeswoman for Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said the move would make the labs more efficient and reduce backlogs.

Turnaround times for DNA samples across the country rose in the mid-2000s, the auditor general found in a 2007 report, as the labs struggled to keep up with police demands. By 2006, police detectives were waiting almost 114 days on average for results.

The review of the Vancouver lab, which looked at 587 DNA files, found little change in turnaround times an average of 107 days for the period 2006 to 2011. A few files took more than a year.

The researchers also found no clear rules about which DNA samples were shunted to the top of queue, whether by severity of the crime or pending court date.

Read more here:
DNA lab's slow results impeding B.C. court cases