STATE OF CONNECTICUT Department of Public Safety 1111 Country Club Road Middletown, Connecticut 06457	Contact:  860-685-8230 pio.dps@po.state.ct.us
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 16, 2008

   The Connecticut  State Police Computer Crimes and Electronic Evidence Unit, working with the National White Collar Crimes Center (NW3C), has been providing a yearlong, ongoing computer crimes investigative training program know as the Fast Track Forensic Program to police officers from local police departments in Connecticut. This program was created to expeditiously train a core group of local police officers in the field of Computer Forensics.

 Through the Connecticut State Police’s Internet Crimes Against Children Grant (ICAC), the State Police obtained $200,000 which has been used to complement numerous classes provide by NW3C in the state of Connecticut.

   This week, the State Police provided each local officer with more than $10,000 worth of computer equipment to use during the training.  The officers will bring the computer equipment back to their departments to begin conducting computer forensic examinations.

   During this training week, the local officers came to the State Police Forensic Laboratory to obtain their assigned forensic workstations and to be trained in the use of the machines and associated software which have been purchased for them.

   The overall Connecticut Fast Track Forensic Program started in early 2008. When training is completed this week, the local officers will return to their departments and conduct local examinations with the software, hardware and training that they have obtained so far.

   This Fast Track Forensic Training Program was implemented due to the continued growth in computer-related investigations and the seizure of numerous computers and related media. The shear amount of data has mushroomed as the industry attempts to make bigger and faster devices at cheaper prices.

   In the State of Connecticut, approximately 80% of the forensic casework is sent to the State Police Computer Crimes Laboratory, with the other 20% sent to local Police Departments. The problem lies with the fact that the growing volume of computer crime cases is exponentially larger than the current number of computer forensic examiners who are trained to investigate the evidence. The Fast Track Computer Forensic Program was implemented in an effort to put law enforcement in a strategic position to handle the current computer forensic caseload and to be prepared to deal with the future number of cases.  Officers in class this week at the State Police Computer Crimes Laboratory are listed below.

### END ### Lt. J. Paul Vance