In growing departments a new property / evidence supervisor, for the most part, will inherit a lot of problems. It is important to have the support of the chief. S/he can assign several officers to help "clean house". House cleaning is needed to prepare the property room for future evidence.

After the long hard winter and the need to destroy old property / evidence, our work has just begun. No more just logging and storing but cleaning and purging our section is about to begin. Some of us will not have much trouble in our spring cleaning but others will have their hands full.

If you are the one supervising the cleaning up operation, you will be looking at a challenge. Network with others for ideas and suggestions. Review books or talk with property/evidence training associations (like IAPE) for suggestions. Contact the commander or chief for extra assigned help. Several things will come from this new found help. Speeding up your spring cleaning is one area that will go faster. You will be giving some officers an education on why the property and evidence section should not be taken for granted.

I am just guessing but I feel most of us have an officer(s) who just can't get it into their head what needs to be done with evidence. You would think everyone would want their evidence / property logged and tagged properly. Some take it for granted others will fix their mistakes. There is always that one officer who has an idea of his own, against policy and procedure, that usually gets under the property officers ski n. S/he has been counseled and reprimanded but that just teaches s/he to take it to the boarder line. I'm not saying - not to listen to new ideas - we all need those, but time tested and proven procedures need to be kept in place, including departmental policy. Changes in procedure should only be done after all personnel who will be effected have input. Someone might be able to suggest a better way or explain a stumbling block not noticed initially.

One idea you might consider when cleaning out property rooms is have property personnel (the temporary help officer?) go to each officer with your inventory sheet. Once s1he makes the rounds to obtain signatures, they might figure out contacting each individual on the department one at a time is not an easy task. In our department I obtain destruction signatures and case updates and then cross reference them with our prosecutors and district court to ensure the case has been disposed of. Once an officer completes this detail s/he often has a better attitude and idea what you have to go through. Don't stop there. Continue the education process by having the assignment include helping the regular property officer/staff physically go through the property / evidence section, rounding up the items for destruction. At first the officer might feel this would be a piece of cake. But if you are assigned an officer to help with property and evidence spring cleaning the newfound help will feel differently.

This is just one of many ideas in your spring cleaning. If the special assignment officer still can't grasp the idea of the property and evidence section, that complete overhaul you always wanted to do might just become a reality. Depending on the size of your property room, relocating long term storage items and general cleaning is something very few of us look forward to.

However, keep in mind you might have to go the extra mile for the officer who always does evidence right, appreciates the difficulties of running a property room and got stuck with the assignment just because of politics or bad timing. Most officers really do not want the pleasure of helping you. I have found, in my experience, that a lot of officers try to steer clear of our section for many different reasons. We all know the responsibility involved in the property / evidence section as do most police officers. As in any profession, there is always one in a group that has to rock the boat. With a little experience and education on what we have to deal with on a daily basis, maybe the problem officer will be a little less likely to rock our boat.