LOWELL, Ark. (AP) - Arkansas’ governor says the state is building a new crime lab in the northwest that will help ease a backlog of cases.
Gov. Asa Hutchinson announced Friday that the state will build a $2.6 million, 10,000 square-foot lab that will share space with the Arkansas State Police Troop L’s new headquarters in Lowell. Hutchinson says he expects the new lab will open in March 2019.
The facility will be the third site for analyzing evidence in criminal cases. The state crime lab is located in Little Rock and the lab has a satellite office in Hope. Hutchinson says operating the lab will cost $653,000 a year.
Hutchinson says the state crime lab currently has 11,000 cases that are awaiting processing, more than a third of which come from northwest Arkansas.
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