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State Crime Lab, Department of Health to possibly merge at URI
Hillary Brady
Issue date: 4/17/09 Section: News
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Currently, Rhode Island forensic investigations are split between the Rhode Island State Crime Laboratory on campus, and the state Department of Health, each of which handles different types of work.
The Department of Health tests bodily fluids and evaluate substances believed to be drugs. The URI crime lab focuses on analyzing fingerprints, fibers and hair, as well as ballistics testing.
"The idea has always come up, as long as I've been working here, to combine them," Dennis Hilliard, director of the state crime lab at URI, said. "Even though the idea isn't new, its come to a culmination because the Department of Health was looking to move their forensic lab to the Department of Public Safety under the state police."
However, there were objections to combining forensic investigation under the jurisdiction of the police.
According to The National Academy of Sciences' February study of national forensic labs, many testing facilities are now under the umbrella of the police force.
"There might be a perceived bias by the public, that the labs give the answer you want to hear," Hilliard said. "Labs should be strongly independent of those sources-Rhode Island is an example of this."
While this idea was presented before the House, many defense groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, objected on the grounds of creating a bias during prosecution, Hilliard said. With this objection, an alternative was suggested to combine the Department of Health's laboratory with the one at URI.
"If the lab were to be at URI, it would be under an academic umbrella not a defense umbrella, and it would solve the defense community's problem with it," Hilliard said.
The equipment and personnel from the lab currently in Providence, R.I. would need to be consolidated at URI.
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