Property Room Design By Officer Steve Berdrow Burbank Police Department

It is recommended that the Property Section be housed in the main police station because of security and employee safety concerns.  This is not to say that remote storage facilities are not desirable; they can be very beneficial.  However the main property function should be where it can be properly protected.

For ease of handling incoming property and evidence, the Property Section should be located on the same floor as the rest of the patrol function.  The report writing room should have sufficient space for evidence packaging and should share a common wall with the Property Room.  That way officers don't have to carry their evidence to another location to put it into the evidence lockers; the lockers would be built into that common wall.  Then the Property Room personnel can take the evidence out of the back of the lockers directly into the processing area. 

Direct access to a vehicle parking area is desirable for bringing in or releasing large quantities of evidence or for large sized items.  However the Property Section should be located away from exterior walls where the public might gain access to plant an explosive device. (See the article "Property Room Bombing ... An Event, or a New Trend?" in the Evidence Log, Vol 97, No 1, and the follow-up on Page 3 of this issue.)  One or two large walk-in lockers off the parking area are very handy for bicycles or other large items.  An inner door that leads into the Property Section and is keyed differently than the outer door allows items to be brought in easily.  If the inner door were made out of wire mesh, you could tell at a glance if anything was inside.

Consider easy access for both your internal and external customers.  The public should be able to get to you without penetrating the secure perimeter of the station, but you also need to be convenient to officers needing evidence for court.

Common construction techniques use wood or metal studs to form walls that are covered with drywall and/or other materials.  This type of construction is fine for our purposes as long as we pay attention to some details.  The perimeter walls of a property section should not be just partition walls where they extend to just above the ceiling; they must extend all the way to the next floor deck.  Otherwise someone could climb over the wall into the property room.  The Property Section must be properly alarmed, and not with just contacts on the doors.  Properly placed motion sensors will detect a door opening as well as someone entering through the roof, ceiling or wall.

The "big three", guns, money and narcotics, should be in their own separate room(s) with additional security measures.  Their construction should be enhanced beyond the normal stud and drywall. Consider a concrete block room inside the Property Section for this purpose.  Also make sure that the builder fills all the cells (the hollow spaces in the center of the concrete blocks) with grout.  This will make a vault with solid concrete walls that is not much more expensive than normal construction.  Again, make sure the walls go all the way up!

Doors and door frames should be metal.  They are much more secure than wood and will last a lot longer.  Door hinges should be of the security type where the hinge pins cannot be removed.  Locks should be a good quality mastered system like Best or Schlage where the keys are not easily duplicated.  Better yet, consider a computerized card key system.  A lost card can be quickly written out of the system and the computer can track personnel movements.  If it was tied in to the security system one pass of the card would turn off the alarm, open the door, tell you who did it, and when.

If there are any floor drains, make sure that trap primers are installed.  These are devices that keep water in the trap part of the drain line to keep odors from coming back into the room.

Ventilation is extremely important, especially in narcotic storage areas.  A separate exhaust fan that runs continuously is the most effective way of handling this.  Make sure there is a source of make-up air such as a vent in the door to that room.

How much storage area do you need?  Before answering that question, you must make sure that your inventory contains only those items that are really needed.  Do you have a purging policy in place?  Do you have the detectives regularly reviewing their cases to make sure the evidence really needs to be kept?  Are you disposing of signed-off items in a timely manner?  If you can not answer "yes" to all of these questions, you are not ready to address storage issues.  The inventory in a properly run property section should show only a moderate growth that is predictable.  Now let's look at storage.

There needs to be a variety of storage areas available due to the large variety of items found in a property room.  Have large shelving for large items, and smaller storage areas for smaller items.  Don't waste space storing air.  Make use of the total volume of your rooms.  If you're getting short of space, look up!  Are there any rooms with a high ceiling where additional shelving could be added?  If you are involved in the design of new space, consider higher storage areas.  Just make sure that you provide OSHA approved ladders and earthquake restraints.

See the Design Comer in previous issues of the Evidence Log for ideas on specific problems such as small items, hand guns, oddly shaped items, etc.  An idea that is great for expanding a confined space is to use the mobile filing systems that are made by Space Saver and several other companies.  These are the shelving units that move on a track and open an aisle only where you need it.  These will almost double the amount of usable storage space over conventional shelving and they are available in a wide variety of configurations.

Banker boxes are cardboard containers that can be very useful in a Property Room.  They are sized to hold letter size files across the width and height and legal size files across the depth, and are good for holding a wide variety of items.  They are inexpensive, reusable, and readily available from many stationery suppliers.  A wall of shelves will hold a large amount of property in these boxes.  But don't use standard width shelves for these as you will be wasting space.  At approximately 13 inches wide they just do not lend themselves to shelves that are 36 or 48 inches wide.  Have the shelves made to fit your containers to conserve valuable space.  If the shelves are made so that they are adjustable you have even greater versatility in your storage capabilities.

The majority of evidence items are small and so it stands to reason that most evidence going to court are smaller items.  With that in mind, consider a room or area near the front of the Property Section with a storage system designed for these small items.  That way you don't have to walk so far to get them, making you more efficient.

What do you do with that vehicle from a crime scene or traffic accident that needs to be stored temporarily for processing or evidence gathering?  Consider an enclosed garage as an ancillary space to the property room.  The vehicle can be securely stored out of the weather and away from public view.  That space can also be used for the temporary storage of large seizures or for property that is ready for auction.

Some type of freezer is necessary for the storage of biological evidence.  The question is whether to use a built-in freezer or free standing units.  Built-ins are expensive but so are good commercial quality free standing ones.  Look at the space you have available.  A built-in freezer is easier to fit into new construction or major remodels, whereas free standing freezers can be more easily arranged around existing obstacles.

Speaking of biological evidence, what do you do with items that have fresh blood, for example, which has to be dried before packaging and storage?  Some type of drying area is required.  It must be able to contain any dripping liquids in a safe manner, have good ventilation, be able to preserve the integrity of the evidence, and it must protect employees from accidental contact.  The best solution is to have a separate room set aside for this purpose.  There are also commercial dryers available for this purpose but they can be expensive.  If your quantities of these items are small, you might consider an out-of-the-way comer of an existing space, as long as it adequately addresses the above concerns.

Another storage problem is flammables and explosives.  Even small quantities of fireworks can be dangerous and should be stored by themselves away from everything else.  The best solution is to get someone else to store them for you.  Check with your fire department; they might be able to handle these for you.  If you're stuck with them, store them properly!  Get a metal cabinet that is approved for this purpose, lock it up, and put it where damage will be minimized if something unexpected happens.

We have covered a lot of ground and hopefully have given you some things to think about.  If you have any ideas or suggestions, or if you have any questions or problems, write to us here at the Evidence Log and we will share your thoughts or try to help. 

Regardless of department size, certain basic criteria should be included in the design and layout of the property room:

1 . Property office should be adjacent to property storage, but not within the confines of the room.  This allows property transactions to occur within the office, and eliminates access to the actual storage area by people conducting business.

2. Currency, Narcotics, and Firearms each need to be stored in a separate room or separate enclosure within the property storage area, preferably with an alarmed and separately keyed door.  Although not ideal, if resources require it, narcotics, firearms and currency can be in the same, high security location, but each at least should have separate areas within it.

5. Easy but separate access for officers and the public for the release (or return) of property is recommended.

6. Property rooms adjacent to report writing with one-way pass-through lockers is recommended.