 |
 |
 |
| Question
& Answers: |
| Question:
|
What sort of
education and experience does the FBI look for in potential
agents? |
| Answer:
|
Traditionally,
as far as education is concerned, it was perceived that
law and accounting degrees were preferred by the Bureau
when it recruited new agents. But that's really not a
hard and fast rule anymore, not by any means. They want
to recruit people with college degrees, but not necessarily
degrees in law and accounting, and with three years of
professional experience. People who have enough of a history
to establish that they can commit and stay focused and
function in a professional environment.
Some people with additional specialized training or experience,
like pilots, members of the military, police officers,
computer programmers, or forensic scientists, for instance,
are more appealing to the Bureau because their expertise
can directly translate into roles for them within the
FBI. Also, candidates that are fluent in a foreign language
will have an edge over others, but only if they're truly
fluent. |
|
|
| Question:
|
Is the FBI looking
for female and minority candidates? |
| Answer:
|
Definitely, but
it's taken the old agency a while to get that going. Since
the rigid, restrictive days of J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI
has become much more diverse. These aren't the old days,
thank goodness, when every agent was a clean-shaven white
male with a crew cut. Now there's an official program
to recruit women and minorities. There are many more women
and minorities in the Bureau today, and the numbers are
increasing. As of 1997, minorities represented 18% of
new hires, and women represented 20% of the new hires.
Not ideal, but a definite improvement. |
|
|
| Question:
|
How do FBI profilers
get involved in investigating cases? |
| Answer:
|
The FBI has access
to a lot more information and, generally speaking, has
the best forensic tools-laboratories, equipment, and so
on-in the nation, so quite often local and state law enforcement
agencies come to the Bureau for investigative assistance.
There's even a special Bureau name and code for this:
Domestic Police Cooperation = 62D. Likewise with foreign
authorities: International Police Cooperation = 163.
The requests have to go through the local field office,
then through HQ, then to the unit. Sometimes people in
local law enforcement wouldn't know that chain, so they'd
contact my unit directly looking for a profiler to come
help with a case. In such a situation, we'd at least have
advance knowledge of what was going on, and we'd send
the officers through the proper chain to get our involvement
approved. I'm sure this still happens.
When a police department requests FBI assistance from
their local field office and the details indicate that
one or more profilers should be assigned to the case,
the profiler coordinator in that region's field office
will contact the unit. Profiler coordinators are agents
who are interested in becoming profilers, so, in addition
to performing their regular duties as agents in the field
offices, they search for these cases. Some larger regions
have more than one. Every year, the profiler coordinators
come back to Quantico for a week or two weeks of in service
training, criminal personality profiling, and crime analysis
training, so they're equipped to make these judgements.
When they call the profilers in, the unit either has all
the material shipped to Quantico, or sends agents out
to meet with local law enforcement where the crime or
crimes occurred, or has the local law enforcement officers
come to see them.
Depending on the case, the FBI will provide the resources
they have. Some may be cold cases, some may involve someone
who has crossed state or national borders and committed
crimes in several regions. The cases have to be prioritized,
and unfortunately some have to wait. The more complicated
cases are done in a group, with three or more profilers
participating in the case presentation, where there's
interaction between law enforcement and the profilers-a
very intense group analysis. This is a really great way
for everyone to put their heads together and come up with
something. |
|
|
| Question:
|
How does an agent
become a profiler? |
| Answer:
|
After interacting
with them for a while, it becomes clear who among the
profiler coordinators is interested and really active
in the program. There may be someone who is assigned to
a squad working white collar crimes or bank robberies
or espionage, and they're really doing a tremendous job
submitting a lot of good cases to the unit, so when there's
an opening they may be invited, along with five or six
others from around the country, to come back to Quantico
for interviews. The chances that those people could become
profilers are much better than they were when I retired.
In 1995, there were ten of us. Now there are about 25.
|
|
|
| Question:
|
What attributes
did you look for in potential profilers into the unit?
|
| Answer:
|
I always looked
for imaginative, creative individuals. Risk-takers. People
who were right-brained, good communicators, both verbally
and on paper, people who had the self-confidence to go
before a task force and speak with conviction, but who
had the restraint not to oversell themselves. To be a
good profiler, a person has to have a sense of humor and
the ability to make fun of himself or herself. As soon
as you lose the smile off your face you' re in real trouble.
When I go out and do presentations people are always surprised
by how I am. Based on what they've read and how I'm portrayed,
they expect me to be like Jack the Ripper, Jr. When I
come out making fun of myself, making jokes, someone always
tells me they can't believe it. But I know for a fact
that if you take yourself too seriously, you'll cause
harm to yourself, and you' ll ruin your personal relationships.
You'd think a lot of FBI agents would fit the bill, but
it's a very rare combination of attributes. I've picked
people who were way too academic, who didn't have enough
investigative experience before they came into the unit,
who hadn't had enough interaction with various crimes
and criminals, or enough experience solving cases, identifying
subjects, and testifying in court. All these things are
really essential. |
|
|
| Question:
|
What would you
have been if you hadn't become a profiler? |
| Answer:
|
I would've remained
a field agent, involved in reactive investigations, like
bank robberies, extortions, kidnapping, searching for
fugitives, fast moving cases that are generally solved
quickly as opposed, say, to investigating white collar
crimes committed by insiders. I imagine I would have eventually
moved up administratively in that area.
If I hadn't gone into the Bureau, I would've probably
gone into industrial psychology-studying violence in the
workplace, stress counseling, that sort of thing. An area
where we could definitely use more people these days.
I guess I didn't have much of a varied fall-back plan.
I think I was just cut out for this sort of work. |
|
|
| Question:
|
I have not been
receiving a newsletter. What could be wrong? |
| Answer:
|
If you have
not received a newsletter, there are several reasons
why this could be happening...
1. No Newsletter Sent - John Douglas
Mind Hunter.com newsletters are NOT
regularly scheduled (i.e. monthly, weekly, quarterly).
If you think you have not been receiving newsletters,
check our newsletter section
- the latest newsletter is always posted on this page
(as are all past newsletters).
2. Not Subscribed - You are not signed
up for the newsletter. If you would like to check and
see if you are registered, go to our newsletter
section and re-subscribe. If your email address
is in our database, you will receive an "Already
Registered".
3. Not Validated - When you subscribe
to the newsletter, you are sent a "validation
email" to confirm your email address is correct.
In order to complete your newsletter subscription, you
need to be able to confirm your subscription by clicking
the validation link in the email. If your email account
does not recieve this validation email, then you will
NOT be subscribed to the newsletter. Reasons for not
recieving the validation email can be caused by SPAM
blockers, office/work email filters, full email boxes,
incorrect spelling of email address, etc.
4. Misspelled/Wrong Email - You have
signed up for the newsletter, but you misspelled your
email address, or entered a different email address
than you are using. In which case, the newsletter is
being sent somewhere else. Once again, you can check
by re-subscribing to the newsletter (see step 1).
5. Bulletin Board Registration - You
have registered for the bulletin board, but you have
NOT registered for the
newsletter. Note: the newsletter and the bulletin board
are two separate programs. Signing up for one does not
sign up for the other.
6. Blocked Emails - Some companies
choose to block certain email addresses, or block emails
containing specified information. To check if your email
is being blocked, contact the person in charge of your
office's technical needs. In this case, the newsletter
will not be accepted by your mailbox.
7. Automatic Spam Blockers - Certain
companies (i.e. earthlink) have spam blockers that don't
allow emails from unsanctioned email address. In this
case, you will have to add webmaster@johndouglasmindhunter.com
to your "allowed" email addresses. Check with
your email account host and see if this security feature
is in effect, and how to resolve this problem.
8. Full Mailbox - If your mailbox has
a limit on the number of emails you can receive, you
may have reached your limit. In this case, the newsletter
will be sent to your email, but will not be accepted
by your mailbox.
9. Email Account Inactive - Some email
accounts are temporary shut down for server maintenance
and technical issues. This is uncommon, but it does
happen. If your email server was down when we send out
an email, you will not receive it. In such cases, we
will receive an email back saying that the email account
didn't exist and your email will be removed from our
list.
10. Removed - If we sent you a newsletter,
and it got returned to us for some reason (one of the
reason's above), then your email will be removed from
our mailing list. In such a case, go to our
newsletter section and re-subscribe.
If you are still not receiving our newsletter, please
contact our site
administrator.
|
|
|
|
