When a DNA match comes back, the lab has done its job. A scientist confirmed the hit, completed the verification procedures, and sent the notification to the submitting law enforcement agency. From the laboratory's perspective, the evidence is ready and the case can move forward. What happens next is largely outside the lab's control, and often outside its visibility.
That gap between "notification sent" and "investigator took action" is where a significant portion of DNA evidence stops producing results. Labs across the country are processing evidence at volumes that would have seemed implausible two decades ago. The breakdown is operational rather than scientific, and it sits at the handoff point between two institutions that depend on each other but don't share a common system.
How notification actually works today
The mechanics of a CODIS hit notification are fairly well-defined at the laboratory level. When a match is identified, the lab goes through confirmation procedures. Once confirmed, the submitting law enforcement agency is notified and receives the investigative lead. The FBI's own guidance describes the moment this way: at the time of the hit, if there is no open active investigation, "the submitting law enforcement agency becomes the laboratory's point of contact for hit notification"[1].
That notification typically arrives by email, by letter, or through a lab-specific application. The New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner uses a web-based DNA HITS application that sends an email to the LEA supervisors and district attorney's office when a hit is confirmed[2]. It's a reasonable system for producing the notification, but the notification going out is not the same thing as the investigator receiving it, reading it, and acting on it.
Once the hit information is provided to law enforcement, neither the FBI nor the local laboratory is typically told how the case resolves[1]. There is no confirmation of receipt, no follow-up if nothing happens, and no mechanism for the lab to know whether the notification reached the right person.
The problem isn't producing the notification
Labs know how to generate a hit notification. The problem is everything that happens, or doesn't happen, afterward.
Investigators work large caseloads, so an email notification from the lab arrives in an inbox alongside dozens of other communications with no particular signal that it's higher priority than anything else. If the investigator has changed units since the case was submitted, the notification may land with someone who no longer owns the case and has no obligation to forward it. If the email address on file is outdated, it may not land anywhere at all.
No one follows up. The lab, having completed its function, has no way to know whether the notification was seen. The supervisor has no dashboard showing which hits are pending action, and the case sits neglected.
This isn't a failure of individual effort. It's what happens when a high-volume, time-sensitive process depends on a single unconfirmed email with no backup systems.
The volume context
The scale of what crime labs are managing makes every inefficiency more costly.
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics' 2020 Census of Publicly Funded Forensic Crime Laboratories (CPFFCL), the most recent comprehensive national survey, the country's 326 publicly funded labs received 3.3 million service requests in a single year. At year-end 2020, they carried a backlog of over 700,000 requests that had not been completed within 30 days of submission[3]. Forensic biology casework accounted for 17.7% of that backlog[3].
At the same time, labs were operating with roughly 1,500 job vacancies nationwide[3]. The 2024 CPFFCL is currently being fielded; it will capture conditions through 2024, but the staffing pressures that produced those numbers have not materially eased, and neither have the delays the result from them. In Oregon, wait times for forensic results reached eight months as recently as early 2025.[4] In Colorado, the state crime lab disclosed a significant DNA testing scandal while simultaneously managing staffing shortages that pushed turnaround times to 18 months for sexual assault cases[5].
Staff turnover compounds the risk
Staff turnover on the investigator side exacerbates the issue of communication. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) projects about 62,200 openings for police and detectives per year through 2034, mostly resulting from workers transferring to other occupations or exiting the labor force entirely.[6] In this kind of high-turnover environment, static notification contacts become unreliable quickly. A detective who received the original evidence submission may have retired or transferred by the time a complex DNA analysis is completed. The person who inherited the case may not know the evidence exists, let alone that a hit came back. There's no automatic mechanism to update the notification contact when personnel changes happen.
Labs have no visibility into this. They send the notification to the contact on file and move on. Whether that contact is still the right person is not something a crime lab database is designed to track.
The feedback problem
There's a second consequence that doesn't get discussed enough: labs have no insight into the outcomes of their discoveries.
Because the FBI does not require laboratories to track local or state conviction rates based on CODIS hits[1], most labs have no systematic way of knowing what their hits produced. A hit that led to an arrest and conviction looks identical in lab records to one that was never followed up on. That absence of outcome data creates real problems for lab directors.
Grant applications require evidence of impact. Legislative appropriations are justified by results. Without outcome data, a lab's most compelling cases go undocumented. A lab director who wants to make the case for additional staff or equipment has no way to show what happened to the evidence their team processed last year.
What automation addresses
An evidence notification system doesn't change what the lab produces. It changes what happens after the notification leaves the lab.
When a hit is confirmed and ready, the system routes it to the correct investigator based on current case assignment rather than original submission contacts. If the notification goes unacknowledged within a defined window, it escalates automatically to a supervisor. The investigator or supervisor can update the lab on case status through a simple return confirmation, giving the lab visibility into whether the lead is being worked. Over time, that bidirectional flow produces the outcome data that labs currently can't access.
The science doesn't change. The number of hits doesn't change. What changes is the proportion of those hits that translate into investigative action because accountability is built into the handoff rather than assuming that a sent email is a received email.
Labs already bear the cost of the broken process: in staff time spent chasing confirmations, in missed opportunities for grant reporting, in cases where the evidence was solid and the follow-through wasn't. Building the notification layer out doesn't add complexity to the lab's work. It removes the administrative work the lab is currently doing to compensate for the gap. The Investigative Accountability Gap: Why Thousands of DNA Hits Go Unworked
Frequently asked questions
How do crime labs currently notify investigators of a DNA hit? Most labs notify the submitting law enforcement agency through a combination of written reports, lab-specific software applications, and email. The FBI CODIS Fact Sheet describes the submitting law enforcement agency as the lab's point of contact for hit notification. Once the notification is sent, labs are not typically informed of what happens next.
What happens if the investigator doesn't respond to a DNA hit notification? Under standard practice, nothing happens automatically. The lab has completed its function when the notification is sent. If the investigator doesn't act on it — whether because they didn't see it, changed units, or are managing competing caseloads — there is generally no escalation process built into the workflow.
What is the backlog situation in U.S. crime labs right now? The Bureau of Justice Statistics' 2020 Census of Publicly Funded Forensic Crime Laboratories reported a backlog of approximately 710,900 requests at year-end 2020. The 2024 Census, fielded in 2025, will provide updated figures. State-level conditions vary significantly — Oregon and Colorado have both publicly reported multi-month wait times as recently as 2025.
How does an evidence notification system help crime lab directors specifically? It reduces the administrative burden on lab staff by automating follow-up and escalation. It gives lab directors visibility into whether hits are being worked. And it produces outcome data — whether a hit led to investigation, prosecution, or closure — that lab directors can use for grant applications, legislative reporting, and program evaluation.
Can an evidence notification system integrate with existing LIMS? Evidence notification systems are designed to work alongside existing laboratory information management systems (LIMS), not replace them. The goal is to automate the handoff layer between the lab's internal workflow and the investigative agencies the lab serves.
Forensic Tracker is an Evidence Notification System that automates the connection between crime labs and law enforcement investigators. To learn how it addresses the handoff problem in your lab's workflow, schedule a consultation.
Sources
- [1] Federal Bureau of Investigation. "CODIS and NDIS Fact Sheet." https://www.fbi.gov/how-we-can-help-you/dna-fingerprint-act-of-2005-expungement-policy/codis-and-ndis-fact-sheet ↩
- [2] New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner, Department of Forensic Biology. "Verifying and Reporting DNA Matches." CODIS Manual, effective February 5, 2026. https://www.nyc.gov/assets/ocme/downloads/pdf/technical-manuals/forensic-biology-technical-manuals/verifying_and_reporting_dna_matches_020526.pdf ↩
- [3] Bureau of Justice Statistics. "Publicly Funded Forensic Crime Laboratories, 2020." U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs. https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/publicly-funded-forensic-crime-laboratories-2020 ↩
- [4] Sickinger, Ted, and Bernstein, Maxine. “Oregon’s Backlog of Untested Rape Kits Is Back.” Governing. August 9, 2024. https://www.governing.com/archive/oregons-backlog-of-untested-rape-kits-is-back ↩
- [5] Sisk, Chas. "Colorado's crime lab has been in crisis. Here's how another state fixed theirs." CPR News / Colorado Capitol News Alliance. May 20, 2025. https://www.cpr.org/2025/05/20/colorado-connecticut-dna-evidence-backlog-turnaround/ ↩
- [6] Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Occupational Outlook Handbook: Police and Detectives.” U.S. Department of Labor. August 28, 2025. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/protective-service/police-and-detectives.htm#tab-6 ↩