The ANSI National Accreditation Board (ANAB) has accredited the Houston Forensic Science Center (HFSC) to Property and Evidence Control Units (AR 3181). ANAB introduced the Accreditation for the Management and Operation of Property and Evidence Control Units in early 2023 and HSFC is the first organization to gain accreditation to this new program. This program supports the integrity of properly controlling property and evidence, while providing confidence and trust in the criminal justice system.
In recent news, there have been numerous stories about lost evidence, including firearms, video files, DNA samples, and more. The Property and Evidence Control Units Accreditation was developed to help prevent these losses by providing organizations with a roadmap for reducing risk and ensuring greater accountability, and a benchmark to measure competency.
The program looks at how organizations, such as HSFC, are implementing major aspects of their operations, including structural, process, resource, and management system requirements. While it should go without saying, controlling property and evidence is crucial to law enforcement and other criminal justice organizations to protect the evidence chain and minimize organizational risk.
“HFSC is very pleased to be the first to achieve this accreditation. Even more we are very supportive of efforts to improve the quality of evidence for the entire criminal justice system. Evidence handling presents very real and significant risk to the entire system. We hope to be the first of many agencies to work to improve evidence in our criminal justice system,” said Peter Stout, HFSC President and CEO.
“This accreditation of the HFSC represents the inaugural event for us here at ANAB in assisting our law enforcement partners to safeguard the chain of custody and greatly reduce the operational vulnerability to the agency. I could not be prouder of our team, which worked countless hours with focus groups and law enforcement committees to build this property and evidence accreditation program. All of us have a shared commitment to the continuous improvement of our criminal justice system. We believe that our new accreditation program is the missing puzzle piece for law enforcement agencies to further protect their integrity and increase their trustworthiness with the citizens and communities they serve,” said Pam Sale, ANAB VP, Forensics.
Learn more about ANAB’s Accreditation for the Management and Operation of Property and Evidence Control Units. Questions may be directed to Jan Girten, Senior Manager of Accreditation, Forensics at 414-501-5447 or [email protected].
About HFSC
HFSC is a nonprofit registered 501(c)(3) and is responsible for providing forensic science services to the City of Houston.
About ANAB
The ANSI National Accreditation Board (ANAB), a wholly owned subsidiary of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), is the largest multi-disciplinary ISO/IEC 17011 accreditation body in North America, with comprehensive signatory status across the multilateral recognition arrangements of the International Accreditation Forum (IAF) and International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (ILAC). The ANAB accreditation portfolio includes management systems certification bodies, calibration and testing labs, product certification bodies, personnel credentialing organizations, forensic test and calibration service providers, inspection bodies, police crime units, greenhouse gas validation and verification bodies, reference material producers, and proficiency test providers. For more information, visit www.anab.org.
About ANSI
The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) is a private non-profit organization whose mission is to enhance both the global competitiveness of U.S. business and the U.S. quality of life by promoting and facilitating voluntary consensus standards and conformity assessment systems, and safeguarding their integrity. Its membership is comprised of businesses, professional societies and trade associations, standards developers, government agencies, and consumer and labor organizations.
The Institute represents and serves the diverse interests of more than 270,000 companies and organizations and 30 million professionals worldwide. ANSI is the official U.S. representative to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and, via the U.S. National Committee, the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). For more information, visit www.ansi.org.
