Benchmarking forensic volume crime performance in Australia between 2011 and 2015

In 2011, the Australia New Zealand Policing Advisory Agency National Institute of Forensic Science Australia New Zealand (ANZPAA NIFS) ran the End to End Forensic Identification Process Project: Phase 1 (E2E1) to identify bottlenecks and inefficiencies across the end-to-end forensic process in Australia and make recommendations as to how these might be addressed. The study concentrated on the analysis of DNA and fingerprint evidence in burglary offences, benchmarking current forensic processes and performance across all eight Australian States and Territories (jurisdictions). Following a positive response, overwhelming support was given for the project to be repeated four years later in order to measure any improvements. End to End Phase 2 (E2E2) was conducted in the same eight Australian jurisdictions with the same sampling areas, across the same length of time as E2E1. The aim was to enable agencies to compare their own data from the previous phase and establish, amongst other things, whether implemented recommendations from E2E1 project had any significant impact. Data was collected for over 7,500 burglaries nationally. This paper presents the findings of the 2015 study as well as comparative analyses between 2011 and 2015. Finally, we discuss the measures taken, whether legal, technological or organisational, that are likely contributors to the performance improvements.