Amid Missy Woods Scandal and Rape Kit Backlog, CBI Honored With "Gold Standard" in Public Safety

The Colorado Bureau of Investigation has made frequent headlines in recent years as the alleged mismanagement of its forensic services unit has shaken public confidence in the state's criminal justice system.

But today, the bureau is being celebrated with continued accreditation by the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA), defined as the "international gold standard for public safety agencies," the CBI announced on Wednesday, August 13.

"CALEA Accreditation is a hallmark of professional excellence, demonstrating an agency’s commitment to being well-managed, transparent, and community-focused," the agency said in its announcement.

This comes as the state is still reeling from the revelation that CBI's former star forensic scientist, Yvonne "Missy" Woods, is accused of intentionally mishandling and manipulating DNA evidence, impacting over 1,000 cases between 2008 and 2023. Woods is facing more than 100 felony charges in the ongoing court case, with her next hearing scheduled in October.

The scandal has already resulted in a murder conviction being vacated, and an impending lawsuit by a family who claims their father committed suicide in prison after being wrongfully convicted to life behind bars due to Woods' influence on evidence.

An outside, state-funded report released in July slammed the CBI's forensic unit over the misconduct, describing it as a poorly-managed, fear-based environment that was ill-equipped to deal with critical incidents, with leadership who were "slow" to respond to early signs of serious wrongdoing. Though the report noted improvements under the new management team, it still went as far as to recommend that the forensic services division be moved out of the CBI.

The full impact of the failure expands beyond the cases that Woods handled. As CBI scientists scrambled to review all of Woods' 10,786 cases in late 2023, their new casework fell to the wayside, resulting in the state's current historic backlog of untested rape kits. However, the backlog existed even before the Woods scandal, with the average turnaround time for rape kits hitting 145 days in July 2022, well beyond the state's goal of ninety days.

As of July 2025, the estimated turnaround time for rape kits reached a whopping 531 days, with 1,082 sexual assault cases in the backlog. As those hundreds of victims wait for the state to process their evidence kits, they are often unable to pursue criminal charges. Under the CBI's current plan, it will take until the end of 2026 to reach the goal ninety-day turnaround time, after more than four years of unacceptably long waits.

The CBI has been continuously accredited by CALEA since 2014, passing a remote review each year and an in-person review every four years. This latest reaccreditation begins a new four-year term.

CBI Spokesperson Rob Low says the CALEA accreditation is "primarily directed at CBI's law enforcement practices," noting that its laboratory "follows its own stringent accreditation process." Though he adds that the forensic services unit has also maintained its accreditation through the many recent hardships.

"It’s a testament to CBI Forensic Services that as soon as the former scientist’s conduct was uncovered in 2023, the CBI notified its accreditation body and took immediate proactive steps to maintain its accreditation," Low says. Regarding the CALEA, he says: "We have maintained accreditation while making major changes to our policy and practices to address any shortcomings that our self-assessment observed, which is a goal of the 'gold standard.'"

Travis Parrish, director of client services and relations for the CALEA, declined to comment on the CBI specifically. He explains that accredited agencies must demonstrate compliance with 464 operational standards, ranging from whether an agency gives the oath of office to every officer who works for it, to whether an agency mandates regular use of force training.

"All of these different things are taken into account, including if there was something in the media," Parrish says. "Now, with that said, we are not an investigatory body. ...That's not our purpose. Our purpose is to make that organization better from a structural perspective, from a management perspective, from an overall operations perspective."

"Just because an agency is accredited doesn't mean bad things won't happen," he adds. "But what it does do is it brings something to focus more clearly. It helps them recover, it helps them respond. It helps them be a better organization after the fact."

When agencies seek reaccreditation, CALEA has the option to revoke, suspend or approve with conditions if it feels an agency isn't meeting its standards.

No such actions were taken for the CBI, Parrish says.