"Protecting the evidence" means more than just making sure no one steps on it at the crime scene. It means packaging it properly so it is not lost, damaged, contaminated or spoiled. The proper type of material must be used in packaging the evidence, and the chain-of-custody must not be broken at any time. It is a travesty to work so hard on an investigation only to have the charges dismissed because of poor evidence handling or questioned chain-of-custody.

Each of our new Evidence Security Bags has tamper-evident designs on it to indicate if the evidence is still secure. These bags are leak-proof and are made of .4 mil thick, tear-and-puncture-resistant plastic. The adhesive closure is extremely strong and there are printed lines on top of the blue band. If anyone tried tofeatopen the bag by pulling on the glue band, the lines will distort. There are curly border lines all around the other three sides. If someone cuts one of these sides and tries to heat seal it again, the curly border lines will show tampering by being shortened or distorted.

Each bag has a chain-of-custody/evidence label printed on it in blue lines on a white background. By being printed directly on the bag, there is no need for a stapled-on tag which may fall off or be torn off. It is easy to write on the bag with a ball-point pen. Most of the front panel is covered with the white label to provide plenty of writing space, but you can still see the evidence clearly through the back of the bag.

The tear-off edge of the bag and the bag itself have matching serialized control numbers. The top edge is removed by the person sealing the bag and kept as a "receipt." Your agency might want to initiate a policy whereby the person booking evidence turns in the receipt, stapled to a report form indicating the circumstances involving the collection of the evidence. The serialized control numbers can be checked and confirmed at any time to help prove the integrity of the evidence.