CMPD FY 23 National Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (SAKI): Purpose Area 3

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department (CMPD) seeks funding to support its Lawfully Owed DNA Collection Initiative. The CMPD has received grants from the New York District Attorney’s Office (FY15) and BJA’s SAKI (FY16, FY17, FY18, and FY22) in support of its “forklift” approach to SAK testing. As a result, the CMPD has generated 977 CODIS-eligible profiles uploaded into CODIS, resulting in 463 CODIS hits from work completed under the CMPD’s previous DANY and SAKI grants. With the addition of lawfully owed DNA samples to CODIS, the identity of unknown offender profiles in the kits that have already been tested may be discovered. Of North Carolina’s 100 counties, the CMPD has been able to collaborate with 34 of its counties for census and collection activities and will continue to attempt to network with the other 66 counties.
Given the work that has been complete thus far to address the issue of backlogged SAKs within Charlotte-Mecklenburg, the CMPD seeks to further enhance investigations through obtaining additional offender DNA profiles that should have been lawfully collected and maintained in the CODIS system. The CMPD will achieve this goal through the following activities: continue to conduct a census in-house of convicted offenders from whom a DNA sample was never obtained, hire one SAKI Convicted Persons DNA Collection Coordinator to carry out the census and manage grant funded project activities, and hire two part-time DNA Collection Officers to obtain lawfully owed DNA samples identified during the census. This effort represents the next step in linking the results from years of successful SAK testing to offenders that should have lawfully contributed DNA to CODIS. Through this initiative, the CMPD will be able to help continue to expand the DNA database, enabling law enforcement to better identify persons convicted of violent and sex offenses involved in unsolved crimes who could reoffend.