The Berks County District Attorney’s Crime Laboratory (BCDACL) is accredited by the ANSI National Accreditation Board (ANAB), under ISO/IEC 17020 standards, as a Forensic Inspection Agency.   The disciplines in the BCDACL’s scope of accreditation include Digital and Video/Imaging Technology and Analysis, Firearms and Toolmarks, Friction Ridge, and Scene Investigation.

In July of 2015, the FSU members started their climb towards International Organization Standards (ISO) of accreditation. They spent months of preparing, rewriting policies, establishing updated procedures, and implementing annual proficiency testing. During this demanding process they continued to balance the everyday functions of a full-time forensic lab.

On October 18th through the 20th of 2016, an on-site assessor review was conducted by an ANSI-ASQ (now ANAB) team of inspectors.  This final part of the accreditation process consisted of a review of the unit’s policies and procedures, and the examination of all of the areas of the laboratory where the FSU members operate. They inspected the equipment and interviewed all of the FSU staff members.  They reviewed case logs, reports, several major cases, training records, personnel files and equipment manuals. Each FSU member was asked a series of questions to demonstrate proficiency in the field, as well as to demonstrate their ability to use assigned equipment.

“By achieving accreditation, our forensic team is now recognized internationally for its integrity, reliability and technical competence. Additionally, they will better serve our constituents and strengthen the confidence of judicial authorities.  This is an outstanding achievement.”

The Berks County District Attorney's Crime Lab is responsible for operating and maintaining Berks AFIS.

The BCDACL is responsible for latent print examinations throughout Berks County.  Sergeant Justin Morrow, Sergeant Albert Schade, III, and Detective Kyle Rentschler are qualified fingerprint analysts and work together to provide quality fingerprint identification services. Sgt. Morrow is one of less than one-thousand International Association for Identification (IAI) Certified Latent Print Examiners worldwide. This unit includes use of the Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS).  AFIS is the process of matching one or many unknown fingerprints against a database of known and unknown prints. AFIS is primarily used by law enforcement agencies for criminal identification initiatives, the most important of which include identifying a person suspected of committing a crime or linking a suspect to other unsolved crimes.

Berks AFIS for identification

Every police department in Berks County, including the Reading Police Department, submit fingerprints taken from crime scenes to Berks AFIS for identification. The Pennsylvania State Police do operate their own out-of-county AFIS labs, but submissions have been made through Berks AFIS to expedite their identification process.