Crime Lab Now & Then
Our state-of-the-art laboratory is located adjacent to the County Communication Center and Medical Examiner’s Office on the Johnson County Sunset Campus in Olathe, Kansas. The 62,500-square-foot facility brings nine distinct laboratory spaces (Biology/DNA, Controlled Substances, Crime Scene Investigation, Digital Evidence, Evidence Control, Firearms & Toolmarks, Latent Prints, Toxicology, and Trace Evidence) together in one building to maximize collaboration, efficiency, and workflow of forensic services while maintaining the highest levels of safety and security.
Crime Lab History
The Johnson County Sheriff's Office Criminalistics Laboratory first began operations in 1974 with four staff and one Officer-in-Charge housed within the county’s Northeast Office building in Mission, Kansas and offered services in Photography, Latent Prints, Crime Scene processing, and Firearms & Toolmarks analysis. Services were soon expanded to include Controlled Substances, Serology, and Trace Evidence. By the mid-80s, the JCSOCL was considered a full-service crime lab with a total of nine staff.
In 1999, the JCSOCL received its first national accreditation from the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors Laboratory Accreditation Board (ASCLD/LAB) in the disciplines of Biology/DNA, Controlled Substances, Latent Prints, Questioned Documents, and Firearms & Toolmarks.
Project planning for a new laboratory began in the summer of 2009 with groundbreaking in the fall of 2010. In April of 2012, the JCSOCL moved into its new, state-of-the-art facility located in Olathe, Kansas.