Evidence is central to any criminal prosecution, defense, and civil proceedings as it is the foundation upon which facts are drawn. According to Ballou et al. (2013) and Butler (2015), the main goal of evidence preservation is to maintain its integrity by ensuring that it is not degraded or contaminated at any stage when required. It is essential in cases that could take a long time to adjudicate. In many instances (States), the law requires that government agencies preserve evidence as long as the concerned matter (defendant) remains within the criminal justice system and well after exhaustion of all avenues of appeal.The method of evidence preservation depends on the type of evidence. Still, a set of common evidence collection and preservation guidelines and procedures have evolved, especially concerning chemically, biologically, or technologically fragile evidence. This requires that the evidence be identified, collected, packaged, secured, and maintained appropriately and passed from one person/party to another under the strictest chain of custody guidelines (National Research Council, 2014). Preservation of evidence, biological evidence DNA, for instance, starts at pre-collection and goes well into the post-collection entails; documenting or memorizing the crime scene such as taking photographs, then separating, packaging, labeling, and storage of the evidence. It involves the transportation of the evidence from the crime scene to storage, storage to a laboratory, storage to court, and vice versa.Appropriate Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) must be used by those handling or coming in contact with the evidence, such as lawyers, court clerks, jurors, and witnesses (police). Mahoney (2015) notes that this rides on the institution of a robust tracking mechanism (chain-of-custody) that can facilitate its monitoring, record any access or retrieval, analysis, handling, transportation, and a receipt indicating the time and dates of each stage. ReferencesBallou, S. M., Kline, M. C., Stolorow, M. D., Taylor, M., Williams, S.,Bamberger, P. S., …
