The Honolulu Police Department's DNA crime lab is inadequately staffed to handle the demands of a new state law that requires the collection of genetic samples from all convicted felons, officials said yesterday during a tour of the facility.

The law went into effect July 1, and the department is expecting an influx of more than 40,000 samples that will have to be processed and stored at the department's Alapa'i Street headquarters, said Joanne Furuya, supervisor of HPD's Scientific Investigation Section.

HPD's DNA serology lab has four full-time technicians and two contract workers. The lab needs at least four more technicians to handle the increase in incoming samples along with the lab's primary responsibility to test DNA evidence collected during investigations, Furuya said.

Furuya said the new law will require the DNA unit to increase staffing, financing and lab space.

"We're going to try and accommodate as best we can," she said.

The lab has a backlog of 30 cases, and clears about four cases a month. Since joining a national DNA database maintained by the U.S. Department of Justice, the lab has processed DNA samples that led to the identification of two possible suspects in Island crimes.

Officials declined to discuss the outcomes of specific cases.

The DNA unit periodically receives grant money from the National Institute of Justice — the research, development and evaluation agency of the U.S. Department of Justice — to help with the maintenance of its Combined DNA Index System, or CODIS, which enables federal, state and local labs to store and compare DNA profiles of convicted offenders.

CODIS is to act as a blueprint for the creation of a state convicted-offender profile database, which state lawmakers approved this year.

Reach Peter Boylan at pboylan@honoluluadvertiser.com.