The Office of the Sheriff Forensic Services Division (FSD) is an American Society of Crime Lab Directors/Laboratory Accreditation Board (ASCLD/LAB) accredited crime lab providing forensic services to more than 24 law enforcement agencies within Contra Costa County and servicing over one million residents. In 2015, controlled substances and toxicology analysis accounted for 51% of all casework requests received by the FSD. Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometry (GCMS) is a scientifically validated and universally accepted confirmatory technique used in both the controlled substances and toxicology units. The GCMS instruments in the controlled substance and toxicology units are relied upon for accurate and timely forensic examination of case samples; the results of those analyses are used in the judicial system. The GCMS instruments currently in use at the crime lab are 16-18 years old. The age of the instrumentation is problematic in the following ways: The GCMS instruments are requiring repair at an increasing frequency resulting in instrument downtime, and valuable staff time being spent on instrument repair, not casework. In 2015, the FSD performed non-routine maintenance or repair approximately 19 times on the aged instruments. The current GCMS instruments are outdated, the hardware and software will no longer be supported by the manufacturer after 2017. The instrumentation used for forensic casework must be in proper working order to obtain accurate and reliable results for use in the judicial system. The computer operating system (Microsoft XP) used to run the GCMS instruments is obsolete and is no longer supported by the Sheriff’s Technical Services Division. The GCMS instruments require a hardware and software update to run on the required operating system, Windows 7. The computer operating systems used in the lab must be supported by Technical Services so that routine computer problems can be addressed and remedied through troubleshooting.

The current GCMS instruments are outdated and will no longer be supported by the vendor as of 2017. Service calls requiring repair by the manufacturer result in instrument downtime and increased maintenance costs incurred by the FSD. In addition, the SO’s Technical Services will no longer support the computer software that provides the analytical results from the current GCMS systems. The combination of the outdated hardware (instrumentation) as well as the obsolete software (Windows XP) will result in a severe hardship in supporting the judicial system for the County.

None.