Evidence and property tracking for law enforcement

Abstract

Methods and systems for collecting, tagging, searching for, retrieving, inventorying, and transferring evidence by law enforcement officials are described, in which RFID tags associated with pieces of evidence can be interrogated to assist in locating information relating to that evidence.

We claim:  
     
         1 . A method of collecting evidence related to law enforcement, comprising the steps of: 
 (a) obtaining a piece of evidence related to law enforcement;    (b) placing the evidence related to law enforcement into a container, the container having an RFID tag associated therewith; and    (c) programming the RFID tag to include a case identifier.    
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the RFID tag is also programmed to include the crime type.  
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the RFID tag is also programmed to include at least one type of information selected from the group of a victim's name, a suspect's name, the location where the evidence was obtained, the name of the person who collected the evidence, the name of the agency handling the investigation, a description of the information, the date of the offense, and the date that the evidence was collected.  
     
     
         4 . A method of collecting evidence related to law enforcement, comprising the steps of: 
 (a) obtaining a piece of evidence related to law enforcement;    (b) placing the evidence related to law enforcement into a container, the container having an RFID tag associated therewith;    (c) programming the RFID tag to include a type of information selected from the group consisting of the case identification number, the crime type, a victim's name, a suspect's name, the location where the evidence was obtained, the name of the person who collected the evidence, the name of the agency handling the investigation, a description of the information, the date of the offense, and the date that the evidence was collected; and    (d) entering information into a database record associated with the RFID tag, the information selected from the group consisting of the case identification number, the crime type, a victim's name, a suspect's name, the location where the evidence was obtained, the name of the person who collected the evidence, the name of the agency handling the investigation, a description of the information, the date of the offense, and the date that the evidence was collected.