Crime Lab Reaches Future Law Enforcement Professionals

The Arizona Department of Public Safety Crime Laboratory’s community outreach program is responsible for educating and informing the public about the job duties our Forensic Scientists do every day.

Since its inception in 2009, the program has made over 300 contacts to nearly 11,000 individuals. The majority of these contacts come from career fairs, college and community tours, community events as well as high school and college class presentations. Already in 2017, the program has reached over 1800 participants.

Forensic Scientist Jessica Budrow has been a member of the program for four years. As a member of the program, Burdow gives tours of the crime lab, attends career fairs and stands in as a guest lecturer for various high schools. Recently, Budrow has given lectures at Ironwood High School in Glendale and Centennial High School in Peoria. The curriculum taught to the high school students over a two day period consists of: crime lab functions, forensic scientist job description, units of the laboratory, mock evidence, latent fingerprint processing and showing the students how to gather inked fingerprints.

The students are currently enrolled in a law enforcement specific elective class, are either juniors or seniors and have an interest in the field of law enforcement. The outreach program provides a direct line of contact from students to working professionals in the field and gives them an opportunity to see how a crime lab functions. If you are interested in learning more about the program please contact Scott Rex at [email protected].