According to the Census of Publicly Funded Forensic Crime Laboratories, the estimated 2009 budget for publicly funded crime labs in the US grew 5.7% to $1.6 billion from the previous census in 2005. The Urban Institute collected the data in 2010 and 2011 and received responses from 97% of the 411 publicly funded US crime labs, 83% of which were accredited. In 2009, 82%, 60% and 59% of the labs provided controlled-substances analysis, latent or hidden prints analysis, and forensic biology services, respectively. In 2009, labs fulfilled 3.9 million requests for forensic services, 34%, 33% and 15% of which were for forensic biology, controlled-substance analysis and toxicology, respectively. At the end of 2009, 1.1 million requests were backlogged, a 1.4% increase from 2008. In 2009, 28% of crime labs outsourced at least one forensic service, down from 51% in 2005. Crime labs had 13,100 full-time employees in 2009, up 10.1% from 2005. Analysts, managers, and lab technicians and technical support personnel made up 60%, 15% and 9% of staff, of which the mean number was 32. The percentage of labs using a LIMS grew 6.3% to 84% of labs from 2005 to 2009.

Source: Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics