Follow-up on Chicago Police Department’s Evidence and Recovered Property Section
Summary
The City of Chicago Office of Inspector General published an audit of the Chicago Police Department’s Evidence and Recovered Property Section (ERPS). The purpose of the audit was to determine whether ERPS inventory was properly accounted for and related procedures were effective and accurate.
Executive Summary
Based upon the results of our audit, we recommended that CPD management immediately design and implement internal controls to ensure that all physical inventory and records can be located. We also recommended that CPD management implement the recommendations made by the CPD Internal Auditing and Control Division in a 2005 audit and the necessary changes to ensure inventory is transported timely to ERPS and its location is accurately recorded. Finally, we recommended that CPD adopt the standards established by the International Association for Property and Evidence related to ventilation systems within the narcotics storage area. In its response to the audit, CPD described a number of corrective actions it would take.
In August 2013, we inquired with CPD regarding the current status of those corrective actions. CPD responded on September 24, 2013. The OIG’s follow-up inquiry did not observe or test implementation of new policies and procedures and thus makes no determination as to their effectiveness, which would require a new audit with full testing of the procedures.
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