Almost a year ago the Florence County Sheriff’s Office in South Carolina was awarded a grant from the Department of Public Safety for more than $220,000 per year over three years to build a crime lab.

While the county looks for additional funding for the anticipated 4,000 square-foot lab, the department has used some of the money to hire a chemist and acquire some state-of-the-art equipment.

The SC Law Enforcement Division has a backlog of cases and a typical case could take as long as six months for SLED to process evidence. Now evidence can be processed in house in as little as three to five days.

Source: South Carolina Now