PEORIA, Ill. (AP) — New federally funded technology will give the Peoria Police Department and Peoria County Sheriff’s Office a quick and easy way to link multiple crimes and help focus their investigative efforts.

The (Peoria) Journal Star reports (http://bit.ly/2elNpHW ) that the departments will have access to the new Integrated Ballistics Identification Systems, which allows trained lab officers to place a shell casing collected as evidence into the machine’s tray and get high definition scans of the casing’s unique markings.

Within a day after the scan has been completed and sent to headquarters, the Peoria crime lab could receive a list of potential leads of what gun was used.

Officials say this new technology will jumpstart future investigations.