Is Your Evidence System Built for 2025’s Caseload?

It’s three days before trial, your prosecutor calls: the body camera footage isn’t redacted, some of the on-scene investigator’s photos are missing, and no one can confirm whether the chain of custody log was maintained. Now your strongest piece of evidence might not make it to court—and no one’s got time to clean up the mess. If this resonates with you, you're not alone. However, your organization could be vulnerable to avoidable risks that can lead to unsuccessful litigation, loss of public trust, and reputational fallout. While the nature of both policing and prosecuting has evolved with a significant increase in digital evidence, many digital evidence systems and sharing practices haven’t kept pace. They were built for a different time—before each case came with hours of video, inputs from dozens of sources and a public expecting near-instant answers.

Digital Evidence Isn’t the Problem. Disconnected Workflows Are.

Most agencies are collecting evidence. It’s the workflow that’s broken. Evidence comes in through thumb drives, CDs, email chains—even paper. Everyone means well, but the process is often still a patchwork of collection points. Prosecutors find themselves frequently chasing evidence. Officers spend a great deal of manual time on tasks that can be made much more efficient through technology. And IT finds itself caught in the middle holding it all together.

As Susan Smith, a product leader at Utility, put it:

“A lot of prosecutors are still getting digital evidence through many different methods. That inconsistency makes it harder to prove security, harder to manage access, and harder to trust the data.”

And it’s not just an internal headache. In court, every disjointed handoff becomes a point of attack. As retired sheriff John Boyd shared:

“The defense bar knows the weak points. If the chain of custody breaks—or even looks questionable—that evidence can get tossed. That’s the reality.”

The Volume Is Only Going Up

Today’s caseload is digital by default. From mobile phones to body cameras, from digital photos and ALPR hits to doorbell footage—you’re not just collecting evidence, you're managing infrastructure. In fact, digital evidence plays a role in approximately 90% of criminal cases.

St. Louis County PD experienced this firsthand. After centralizing their workflows, they didn’t just speed up case prep—they brought confidence to the courtroom.

“POLARIS [Utility’s Digital Evidence Managment Platform] is able to do finer redactions, quicker redactions... and it finds more things you might have missed. It does it right the first time, without all the touch-ups,” said one investigator.

“I don’t have to go frame by frame anymore.”
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‍Chain of Custody Can’t Be a Guessing Game

Maintaining a clear chain of custody is critical to the admission of key evidence. The chain of custody works to ensure the evidence is what it purports to be, has not been tampered with or altered, and has been appropriately handled. Today’s standards demand platforms that log every access point, lock down permissions, and let you prove—without a doubt—what was viewed, edited, or shared. As Smith explained:

“Chain of custody isn’t a checkbox anymore. It has to be baked into the platform. If someone says they didn’t receive a file, your audit log should show exactly when it was sent, downloaded, and by whom.”

Smarter Tools Mean Efficiency on the Job

Inefficient processes and ill-equipped systems continue to drain law enforcement and justice resources, especially in time-consuming areas like manual redaction and using expensive third parties for transcription. Efficiency through technology gives staff time back to stay on task and increase performance. Patrol stays in the community, investigations are able to ensure case evidence isn’t missed, redaction technicians prepare evidence quicker, and IT staff, who are already stretched resources, no longer find themselves babysitting systems.

Smith has seen how automation helps these organization reclaim time and protect their team.“What used to take 10 people,” she noted, “could be scaled down to four by using the tools built into the system, enabling teams to function more efficiently and staff members to focus on the jobs they were actually hired to do.”

At St. Louis County PD, the impact has been tangible. Officers say POLARIS now handles redactions more thoroughly and efficiently than they could by hand—“Polaris does finer redactions, quicker redactions… and it does it relatively accurate the first time without any touch-ups.” Even patrol units are saving time with digital evidence management systems.Lt. Don Peck, Nampa Idaho PD described how POLARIS’s citizen upload feature eliminated unnecessary evidence handling: “We just send them a link, they upload it straight into POLARIS, and we don’t have to touch it.”

The bottom line? When redaction and evidence prep are automated, your team stays focused on what matters most—responding quickly, investigating effectively, and protecting the community.

Where the Public Fits In

Some departments are still dispatching officers to go door to door to try to speak with a possible witness, leave a card in hopes of someone getting back to them, or picking up video from a business’ CCTV camera or a citizen’s doorbell camera on a thumb drive or requesting it through email. Others? They’ve embedded evidence collection into community trust efforts. DeWitt, IA police department now includes a QR code in every new resident’s welcome packet—linking them to a secure upload portal offered through POLARIS.

“We’re not Big Brother,” DeWitt PD’S Chief David Porter clarified.

“We don’t have access to their cameras. But when something happens, they scan the code, upload their footage, and it drops directly into the case file—with chain of custody built in.”

No more backlogs. No more chasing down thumb drives or DVDs. And no more wondering where that video ended up.

Ask Yourself

If your organization still relies on manual uploads, unverified emails, or thumb drives, what happens during your next high-profile case? What if a single file gets lost, or accessed by the wrong person? And more importantly: will your current process stand up in court—or in the press? In today’s caseload, you don’t just need to capture the evidence, you need to control it.

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