Storing Small Items of Evidence By Officer Steve Berdrow Burbank Police Department

The majority of items of evidence that come into a police department's property room are small, but in spite of their small size, their number gives them a tremendous impact on storage needs.  There are probably as many different ways of storing them as there are I.A.P.E. members, but here is one that I have found especially convenient as well as efficient.

In the Burbank Police Department Property Section, we use various sizes of standard manila envelopes for small items.  The envelopes of each size are stored in plastic drawers that have been manufactured in the correct size, and the drawers then are stored on shelves that have been spaced correctly for each size drawer.

As you can see in the accompanying photo, we attach the hard card copy of our Evidence Tag and the item bar-code sticker(s) to the top front of each envelope.  The envelopes are placed into the appropriate size drawer, in numerical order, with the newest item in front.  Each drawer is labeled with the Evidence Tag number range on a 3"x5" card, which is color coded by year.

This results in a storage system that has great capacity and is easily managed.  Specific items are easily found by "letting your fingers do the walking" across the tops of the envelopes.  Since all bar-codes are on the outside, inventory is a simple matter of running the portable bar code reader wand over each envelope.  We also store narcotics and currency in the same manner, using envelopes that have been pre-printed especially for those types of evidence.

Manila envelopes are inexpensive, and are available from any stationery supplier.  I don't know of any commercially available drawers made for this purpose.  Ours were custom made by a local plastics manufacturing firm.  They are a little pricey, but you only need to buy them once.  In lieu of custom drawers, you could store the envelopes in plastic bins from a variety store, or even cardboard boxes that your copy paper is delivered in.  With care the containers will last almost forever.