Paper, not plastic

When I introduced myself last week I promised that from time to time I'd run a feature called "Ask A Cop".  I invited someone to get me started by asking me about clear plastic evidence bags and Bill80 and Amy Guth, good sports, took the bait:

"OK, Joe. I'll bite. What about those plastic bags?"

"Yeah, Joe. What about those plastic bags?"

I'll tell you what about those plastic bags.

Since I first became an evidence technician in 1990, my biggest single pet peeve about cop shows and movies has been that fictional cops are routinely shown putting evidence in clear plastic bags.  Sometimes the producers go to the trouble of using actual evidence bags, but more often they just show the evidence being dropped into a big clear zip-lock type bag.

Here's the deal--other than for drugs or documents, evidence technicians do not use plastic bags for collecting evidence.  We use brown paper bags.  Plastic bags do not "breathe" like paper.  If you place anything damp, or anything with organic material in a plastic bag and seal it, bacterial growth can degrade the quality of the evidence.  Drugs go in plastic, currency or questioned documents can go in plastic; arson evidence goes in metal cans (they look like unlabeled paint cans), nearly everything else goes in a paper bag.  Guns and knives can go in specially constructed cardboard boxes.  If you see evidence technicians carrying evidence out of a major crime scene it looks like a compulsive hoarder with OCD coming back from a trip to the grocery: rows and rows of brown paper bags covered with labels and scrawled notes in magic marker.

Some shows now are finally getting it right.  My daughter sent me a text the other day, excited to tell me that an episode of "CSI New York" showed the techs using paper bags.  Ah, progress.  Hollywood finally gets the packaging right, giving me one less reason to yell at the television.  Maybe one day they'll be so edgy as to feature a crime lab with backlogs, staffing problems, budget restrictions and lack of resources. 

So, Bill and Amy, thanks for your question.  Remember, if there's anything you've ever wanted to ask a cop, just send me an email and I'll try and accomodate you.