Approximately 40 percent of the State's crime occur in Los Angeles County. Crime laboratories operated by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department (LASD) are extremely short of laboratory space.
A solution to this problem has been found in a cooperative partnership of the California State University at Los Angeles (CSULA), the LASD and the LAPD. Thanks to then Governor Grey Davis, Assemblymember Hertzberg, Sheriff Baca, and Chief Parks, 96 million dollars of State of California revenue bond funds was allocated for the construction of a new regional crime laboratory facility. The new facility located on the campus of California State University, Los Angeles (CSULA) will house the LAPD and LASD Criminalistics Laboratories, along with the CSULA Criminal Justice Program and the CSULA chartered California Forensic Science Institute (CSFI).
This endeavor shall foster collaboration between the operational LASD and LAPD crime laboratories and CSULA programs in criminalistics, chemistry, biological sciences, psychology, anthropology, nursing, and criminal justice. The CFSI will create internships and full-time professional career opportunities for CSULA undergraduates and graduate students. The CSFI will also offer continuing education and distance learning programs for police and forensic scientists throughout the State with the support of the California Department of Justice-Bureau of Forensic Science.
The facility is scheduled to be completed in the summer of 2006. The staffs of both the LASD and LAPD crime laboratories are working in close cooperation preparing for the move to the facility and building the foundation for sharing a common work environment. The California Forensic Science Institute, working out of temporary office space elsewhere on the CSULA campus, has already begun raising operational funds, planning public educational events, and outlining forensic training programs.
inside the lapd 
