DECATUR, Ga. — At the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI), cases are moving out because the staff are staying in.
"The progress has really been around retaining the staff," GBI Crime Lab Director Cleveland Miles said. "We want to get out of this cycle of hiring, training and losing because if we stay in that cycle, we're not able to get the cases out the door."
Miles said a boost in state support has helped process more cases than the agency has received for the first time in several years. Now, it is able to make headway on an evidence backlog.
The GBI received about 103,000 requests for testing so far this fiscal year; it reported 105,000 back.
"Whenever we're in a position to be able to do that, it allows us to decrease our turnaround time, meaning that we can do cases a lot faster," Miles said. "Those will translate to the citizens of the state seeing the police departments, seeing the court systems move a lot faster because they're not being held up by waiting on forensic work."
The agency is also embracing new technology that allows some of the work to be automated.
"That technology allows for us to do cases a lot faster, a lot more efficient, with fewer hands involved," he said. "As far as the scientists, they're able to redirect their efforts to other things to help keep cases going out the door."
The technology is already helping them process sexual assault kits and property crime evidence more efficiently.
"We are seeing a lot of implementation of new robotics and other technology," he said. "What that does for us, especially in forensic biology, is allows for us to create a high throughput method."