Georgia Bureau Of Investigation Receives Forensics Excellence Award

Friday July 10, 2009 - The Georgia Bureau of Investigation was recently named the recipient of the 2009 August Vollmer Excellence in Forensic Science Award. The annual honor, bestowed by the International Association of Chiefs of Police, is given to an agency that shows exemplary use of forensic technology

The bureau earned the honor for its marijuana training program, which was created by the agency’s chemistry section. The program trains local law enforcement agencies on the procedures needed to analyze marijuana seized in their own communities. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation also works with crime scene clean up companies to insure that proper procedures are followed for testing materials found at the scene of a crime. The focus of the program is to speed up processing of marijuana cases and also to take pressures off the chemistry section.

Since the program’s inception, 1,600 officers have been certified by the bureau to test marijuana. As a result, drug cases are moving through the legal system faster and the laboratory has seen a 98 percent reduction in demand for marijuana testing, freeing bureau experts to handle other cases.

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