SHUFFLING SHELVES
When it's time to bring a vehicle inside the crime lab for examining evidence, a huge swath of shelves and sensitive testing equipment has to be moved from in front of the garage door and then moved back into place when the exam is done.
Elsewhere in the lab, the locker that holds frozen evidence is so full of portable racks that there is no more room inside. It takes a lot of shuffling to find a piece of evidence, during which time the door stays open and all the evidence is at risk of warming up to troublesome levels. The super-cold freezer for long-term preservation of DNA evidence is stuck in a hallway, and it is packed full.
GUN 'LIBRARY'
The gun "library" -- where the state aims to collect one example of every weapon that might be at issue in a crime case -- is literally in a tiny closet, choked with multiple gun racks. Dozens of rifles and shotguns are squeezed into the tiny space between the racks and the closet wall.
What used to be the lab's conference room is now packed with cubicles for workers. Paper records from past cases are stored in locked cabinets wherever there is space, rather than a secure room.
VENTILATION ISSUES
The current building can't host lab space for sensitive equipment that analyzes trace amounts of evidence, because poor ventilation in the drug analysis area might contaminate the trace samples. (Walk into the drug area and the smell of marijuana is unmistakable.) Air intake for the building is in a spot that occasionally takes in exhaust from vehicles idling in the nearby DOT maintenance yard. Sometimes the lab has to call over there and ask for the vehicles to be turned off or moved.
The crime lab has already expanded once at the current site. The state medical examiner used to have some space there, but eventually moved to new quarters. That freed up room to add a DNA analysis lab, but analysts who have been plowing through thousands of backlogged DNA samples work elbow-to-elbow at their desks and have to use a sign-up sheet to claim their time in the analysis rooms.
With more room and more staff, the lab could begin processing DNA or other evidence from property crimes. Police departments seldom send in that evidence, because murders, rapes and other serious crimes take priority for limited staffing and space.
SITE IS READY; DESIGN IS DONE
For all these reasons, the Legislature and Gov. Palin have spent the money to design a much larger, state-of-the-art lab and prepare the site for it, along Anchorage's Tudor Road, a half-mile west of the current lab. This project is shovel-ready, but lawmakers have not yet seen fit to fund construction.
Part of the funding delay comes from project critics, who claim the $94 million project is overbuilt and gold-plated. They got the state to commission a peer review of the design, but the results of that work are not yet public.
A FULL-SERVICE LAB
The touchstone for the new lab is not what other small states in the Lower 48 do. The touchstone is what Alaska needs.
Our nearest full-service alternative crime lab is in the Lower 48. Flying evidence and experts back and forth is expensive and time-consuming. Alaska's new crime lab will house nine different labs, all of which have specialized space needs. By contrast, North Dakota's state lab has only four of those functions. That's why North Dakota's lab fits comfortably into a space much smaller than planned for the new building on Tudor.
HOW TO PAY FOR IT?
The need for a new crime lab is there, but sad to say, the money is not in hand. The window of opportunity to pay all cash for the new state crime lab has passed. Last summer's $140 a barrel oil is now $50 a barrel oil. The state's multi-billion dollar surplus is a distant memory.
It will take some kind of lease-purchase arrangement or state bond to finance the new crime lab. The sooner the governor and legislators fund construction, the better. As long as the state keeps dithering, more criminals get the chance to roam free.
BOTTOM LINE: The new crime lab will be pricey, but it's an important investment that will improve public safety.
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