Demand for DNA testing in US crime labs from 2005 to 2008 increased despite federal funding for the DNA Initiative, which is administered by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ). Demand is increasing due to greater awareness, the use of DNA testing in property crimes, advances in DNA science, the reopening of old cases and post-conviction testing. Although the definition of a “backlogged case” varies, the NIJ defines it as a case that has not been tested within 30 days of its submission to the lab. There are two types of backlogs: casework backlogs, which have been collected from a crime scene; and convicted offender and arrestee sample backlogs, which are DNA collected from convicted criminals and stored in the FBI’s Combined DNA Indexing System database. Increasing lab capacity did not catch up with backlogs because of increasing demand. Between 2004 and 2009, the NIJ’s DNA Backlog Reduction Program provided $330.2 billion in grants to public labs, resulting in the testing of 135,753 cases. In addition, two NIH programs designed to reduce testing backlog for convicted offender and arrestee samples provided more than $53 billion in funding from 2005 to 2009 for testing of more than 1.6 million samples.

Source: NIJ