From the intake desk to the crime scene room, News 12 New Jersey was recently given a behind-the-scenes tour of the New Jersey State Police Office of Forensic Sciences’ Gun Processing Center in Hamilton.

At the facility, state police process guns from across the state and gather evidence and information to help not only solve crimes, but also prevent other shootings.

In the crime scene room, high tech microscopes, a fuming chamber and simple swabs are used to find things like fingerprints and DNA evidence.

Following intake and the crime scene room, the gun heads to the Ballistics Unit, where an investigator test fires the weapon on a shooting range, or into a water tank. The discharged cartridge case is then taken to the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network tech investigator, who uses images to determine whether the bullet matches any others fired from the same gun anywhere in the country.

State police recently moved all of their processing components and people under one roof. The move, in addition to other policy changes and technology, has helped speed up the process, getting the information and evidence to detectives in the field more quickly, officials said.

According to state police, what use to take 10 months to process now takes just 48 hours.