The General Secretariat oversees the organisation's budget and the allocation of resources and people to its respective departments.
The department also oversees the Museum of Criminology, which is located in the building of the OIJ in the First Judicial Circuit of San Jose.
The Forensic Science Laboratory technically analyzes each of the evidence gathered during investigations, conducting counterfeiting detection, forensic biology, biochemistry, ballistics, analytical chemistry, toxicology, navigational transit, planimetry, and the analysis of photo and video evidence.
In a victory for press freedom and citizen journalists, Judge Ernesto Jinesta Lobo of the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court condemned the OIJ for conducting illegal wiretaps to identify the sources used by Estrada for his article.
[2] Further criticism of the department has stemmed from its practice of automatic dismissal of investigations related to intellectual property crimes up until 2011.