INDIANAPOLIS — 2025 is starting with the walls of the old Marion County Jail 1 coming down, nearly 60 years after the jail first opened.
Crews and heavy machinery is now inside the fence surrounding the entirety of the now-empty jail. Inmates moved out more than two years ago, but the final tenants only cleared out late in 2024.
”The main location was Jail 1, downtown, 40 S Alabama St,” said Richard Amberger, Forensic Services Agency.
The Forensic Services Agency tests criminal evidence through biology, prints, drug chemistry or firearms.
”You mostly see us on the TV,” Amberger said. “Our big vans, that’s our crime scene specialists.”
The FSA was partially housed in Jail 1 for nearly 40 years. The team came from three separate location to their new, modern building on the Criminal Justice Campus.
”It has made a massive improvement in our operations,” Amberger said.
The crime lab processes more than 12,000 cases a year. Amberger said that’s nearly 100,000 pieces of evidence. With everyone now under one roof, he said the evidence flows much quicker.
”Time is everything,” Amberger said. “Time is getting that information to the investigator, time is getting that information to the prosecutor. And anything we can do to reduce time, to get that case work done in a timely manner, that’s what matters.”
The new modern building isn’t just great for workflow.
”Ventilation alone is much better,” Amberger said. “We don’t have the smells we had in the old facility. We don’t have the leaking we had in the old facility.”
Amberger took us on a tour of their more than 50,000-square-foot facility.
For the first time, the crime lab has an evidence complex. Amberger said it means crime technicians don’t have to go police for evidence, IMPD now brings it to them and it’s stored in the evidence complex. Think of it as essentially a library of crime scene evidence.
”The staff will call down here and say I want this evidence and they’ll come to this window right here and this person will come get the evidence and check it out to them,” Amberger said.
The FSA is also home to an extensive gun vault. It gives techs a database to compare firearm evidence.
”If the markings on a gun are scratched off we can look at a similar gun and see what was the font, what was the font size,” Amberger said.
As the forensic services agency’s old home gets torn down, plenty at the crime lab wonder what will go in there next.
”We obviously ask people who may or may not be in the know what’s going on there, but no one knows,” Amberger said. “No one is telling us anything, but we’re curious just like anyone else.”
The demolition of Marion County Jail 1 will cost about $4 million.
