Crime Lab History

The Johnson County Sheriff's Office Criminalistics Laboratory first began operations in 1974 with four staff and one Officer-in-Charge housed within the county’s Northeast Office building in Mission, Kansas and offered services in Photography, Latent Prints, Crime Scene processing, and Firearms & Toolmarks analysis. Services were soon expanded to include Controlled Substances, Serology, and Trace Evidence. By the mid-80s, the JCSOCL was considered a full-service crime lab with a total of nine staff.

In 1999, the JCSOCL received its first national accreditation from the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors Laboratory Accreditation Board (ASCLD/LAB) in the disciplines of Biology/DNA, Controlled Substances, Latent Prints, Questioned Documents, and Firearms & Toolmarks.

Project planning for a new laboratory began in the summer of 2009 with groundbreaking in the fall of 2010. In April of 2012, the JCSOCL moved into its new, state-of-the-art facility located in Olathe, Kansas.