In Australia, which is a country roughly the size of the United States of America, there are only six state police forces and one federal police force.  New South Wales is the most populated state and as a result has the largest number of police, with a total staffing level of 13,000 sworn police officers and 3,500 civilian employees.  This article details an outline of exhibit handling and office procedures, with an outline of security and access requirements within a system which requires evidence taken at the scene to be treated as an exhibit from that moment.  There is no plea bargaining in New South Wales.

Generally I was in charge of the Sydney Police Station, which amongst other things was responsible for storing all of the state's indictable drug exhibits and for storing and disposing of the Sydney metropolitan exhibits and found property.  This meant that on average there were 6,000 exhibit items and 40,000 property items on hand.  These figures were used as a guide to monitor the movement of the items, thus it was a goal to ensure that as far as possible items received roughly equated with items returned or otherwise disposed of.  Everything was recorded by a manual book system.  Each book made provision for 100 exhibit entries, with room for 25 items per entry - if the entry was made neatly and correctly on the lines available.  The controlling system relied entirely on the integrity of the seven sworn staff responsible for the exhibit store.

As their commander, I was expected to conduct an audit of 10% of the items on hand each year.  I was not satisfied with that so made it my goal to audit 10% of the property exhibits, but all of the drug and cash exhibits each year.  To meet this goal I was required to inspect five exhibit books each week.

What concerned me about the system was not so much the integrity of the staff, but the integrity of the operational officers in charge of the various court matters.  These people were not my staff and could quite correctly remove their exhibits from my command's exhibit store.  It was theoretically possible, in the case of drugs, for these police to recycle them.  By recycling, I mean being dishonest and using the same drug exhibit against several offenders by "planting" the evidence, or even worse selling the drugs back onto the street.  Whilst I had no evidence that such was occurring within our area, there was evidence from overseas that police did engage in such activities and more unfortunately a large shipment of marijuana had in fact been stolen by the officers responsible for the impounding from a New South Wales police exhibit store (not mine), and supplied to criminals.  This information was available to all, including politicians, and one such politician, had in fact referred to the system as being a "Tuckshop".

From the manual system, as the person responsible for the audit, I had no way of knowing quickly or efficiently which officer had taken which items from the exhibit store.  I had no efficient and speedy way of ascertaining how many exhibit items a particular officer had not returned to the exhibit store.  I could not ascertain how many exhibit items any individual officer had taken from the exhibit store over any given period.  The only way I could answer any of these questions was to physically and personally check each individual entry in each of the over 100 books in use.

Interestingly, there was a system for monitoring the efficiency of operational police in dealing with the correspondence relating to the handling of the exhibit items, but with this system the failing was that people did not verify the information contained within the report, therefore it was possible to "write off' book entries merely from the written word of the operational officer.  Of course no one is suggesting that every operational police officer is corrupt.  The problem was the system did not allow for, or include, any corruption prevention strategies.

It was this crying need for some effective control measures that led me to look for some better, and if possible computerized system.  That was when my problems really began.  Surprisingly there were more people opposed to tightening the system than I would have expected, and not only was the opposition because of anticipated costs.  But that is another story for later discussion and publication.

The Exhibit Store in my command was located in the basement of the purpose built police building.  It incorporated a number of security measures including double door entry systems where only one entry could be opened at any one time with full color video monitoring.  These double entry systems provided access for police to the reception area, and also for particular officers from the reception area to the office / acceptance area.  Once again this was monitored by video cameras.  Even the store rooms were monitored by video cameras and, in fact, whenever anyone entered the drug store vaults, automatic video recording occurred.  This recording occurs within the Building Security Control Room under the direct supervision of the on duty security officer.

The planning also includes a comprehensive set of Standard Operating Procedures to ensure the security of the exhibit premises and to protect the staff even down to easily remembered codes in case of kidnap or extortion attempts. 

A motor vehicle control device was also installed to prevent any attempt at vehicle ramming, as there is vehicular access to the premises to allow for delivery and picking up of larger items or the bulkier items.  Swipe cards were also installed so that only a very small number of police, less than five, could enter through the doors into the public area and also into the office area-not even all of those with the swipe cards would be accepted by the print scanners.  Such finger scanning devices were installed between the office area and the store areas, to check the prints of the person seeking entry to the storage areas-it was programmed to only accept a particular restricted number of prints, thus reducing the opportunity for access.  

Bill Newberry retired from the NSW Police Service in August, 1996, after some 38 years service.  At the time of his retirement he was the Commander of the Sydney Police Station, which included the state's major exhibit and property store.  Bill, who held the rank of Chief Inspector, had been the Commander of this Station for some four years.  Since retirement, Bill has been actively engaged in the running of promotional assessment centers for the New South Wales Police, and in assisting in the development of a computerized exhibits and property handling system - designed from an operational police perspective.