JAY – In nearly all investigations – from minor burglaries to homicides – police officer Richard Caton IV and his colleagues utilize forensic technology that seems more appropriate to television shows such as “CSI” than small-town Maine.

Swabbing for DNA has become the norm, Caton said Tuesday. It can be found almost anywhere, from the rims of drinking glasses to bites on the bodies of assault victims. In one case, a cigarette butt was found at the scene a crime, Caton remembers. DNA later matched a suspect to it.

Evidence is basically anything that can tie a suspect, a victim, or a weapon to the crime, he said.

“It’s a great new tool in law enforcement,” Wilton Police Chief Wayne Gallant said Tuesday of DNA analysis. Both he and Farmington Detective Marc Bowering can remember cases that may never have been solved without it.

But DNA analysis isn’t the only technique being used regularly by area departments. Fingerprinting, the traditional way and in fuming chambers, shoe or tire tread casting, checking for fluids with luminol or special lights, and other methods are all used regularly, Caton said. Once gathered, all the evidence is sent to the Maine State Crime Lab to be analyzed before being sent back and logged into each department’s evidence room. The testing is paid for by the state.

Police in Franklin County, with limited budgets, lower manpower, and fewer violent crimes than in big cities, might not be the first one would associate with such in-depth scientific testing. Advances in technology have made it cheaper and far more viable in recent years.

Gone are the days when small-town departments had to wait months – if they got them at all – before getting fingerprint analysis results back from the FBI. Back then, analysts had to go through the prints by hand, Wilton’s Gallant said, and high-profile cases got preference. “So if you had a burglary in a little town in Maine, they wouldn’t even consider taking the time,” he said.

Now, once prints are sent to the Maine State Crime Lab, they are uploaded into the Automated Fingerprint Identification System computer database, and results can come back in as little as a few days, if not a few weeks.

Technology has made such a big difference in solving crimes it is now applied in situations that never figure into shows like “Law and Order” and “CSI.” Property crimes, in particular, can be solved more easily now because police can use DNA analysis, the finger-printing database, and casts of shoe or tire impressions, Gallant said. In burglaries, witnesses are usually hard to come by.

Remote surveillance cameras and subpoenas of phone records are also used to solve property crimes, Bowering said. “Usually in every investigation, we’re using one or more of (the new techniques),” he said.

So successful is it, Jay Police Chief Larry White said Tuesday, that he puts a great deal of emphasis on getting the right equipment and training for his officers in as many new investigatory techniques possible.

“The Jay Police Department does all it can to see our officers have the most up-to-date training. And that’s an absolute necessity if we’re going to be able to investigate property crimes and crimes against victims in the proper manner.”

“The new technology can be amazing,” Gallant said.