Carroll County Sheriff’s Office awarded $500,000 from Congress for new forensics lab

When the Carroll County Sheriff’s Office opens its new headquarters in 2026, the building will include a new digital laboratory to investigate and analyze criminal evidence. The lab recently received $500,000 in federal funding.

The U.S. House of Representatives on March 6 passed a $460 billion government funding package for fiscal 2024 that included more than $11.2 million for projects in the Baltimore region.

Of that amount, $500,000 was set aside for the Carroll sheriff’s office for the construction of a state-of-the-art physical and digital forensic laboratory, and $1,432,673 to renovate the vacant North Carroll High School in Westminster, for the Boys & Girls Club.

U.S. Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, a Baltimore County Democrat, advocated for and helped to secure the Baltimore-region funding, according to a news release from his office.

The new sheriff’s headquarters will be in Westminster’s Greenwood Avenue complex, off Ralph Street. The new headquarters will be between 42,000 and 52,000 square feet on about 2.5 acres, county staff has said. According to concept plans, the estimated cost of the two-story building is $30.4 million.

“The Forensics Lab that this money has been allocated for is part of the new building and is still in the design phase,” said Cpl. Jon Light, public information officer with the sheriff’s office. “We will be able to provide more details once those designs are further along.”

In July 2022, the Board of Carroll County Commissioners unanimously approved a $2,562,300 contract with Manns Woodward Studios, of White Marsh, for architectural and civil engineering design of the new headquarters.

The new headquarters will consolidate sheriff’s office operations, including the patrol division currently housed underneath the detention center; the Office of the Sheriff, which is at the historic jail; criminal investigations; property and evidence; crime scene investigators; digital forensic analysts; and crime analysts, all of which are in the basement of the public library in Hampstead.

State Del. Eric Bouchat, a Republican who represents Carroll County in the Maryland General Assembly and was a member of the Board of County Commissioners that approved the design contract, said he supports the future forensics lab.

“[Carroll County Sheriff Jim] DeWees has been a great leader putting the county on the forefront of law enforcement technology that continuously evolves,” Bouchat said.