Josie Colon
Professor Frabizio
FYE 101 B1
29 September 2014
Criminal Investigator: FBI Special Agent
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is known as one of the most sophisticated and much respected organizations in the world. The FBI has been protecting American people from enemies both domestic and foreign since 1908. The Bureau’s top priority is fighting threats to America’s national security as well as organized crime such as drug trafficking, white collar crime, violent crime and crimes against children. Many if not all FBI agents are special agents, over 32,000 men and women are special agents with professional support positions and they each contribute to the safety of us all.
All FBI special agents each individually have many similar skills used throughout their careers as special agents but each special agent will be placed in a different category within the Bureau. Special Agent applicants must meet certain qualifications to be eligible for employment, including citizenship, age, education, eyesight, hearing, and physical fitness. The work of FBI special agents is rigorous and demanding, sometimes even dangerous (Ackerman 53). The “critical skills” needed to be a special agent depend on what the Bureau needs at the time of your entry and will vary periodically. Also if you have a felony or have used or sold illegal drugs will result in automatic disqualifications of employment in the FBI and anyone under the age of 23 or over the age of 37 are not accepted into the FBI. The bureau prefers that all their agents have a bachelor’s degree from a four year resident program, there is no particular major required due to the fact they need a varied of different major/ professionals to fit into their large organization. On average a special agent will make anywhere from 68,000 to 140,000 in a year and depending on which level you are on. In the first year every agent begins at GS-10 and could make it all the way to level GS-15 by the end of their careers. On average all field agents and agents who are not required to be in the field on a daily schedule are required to have the willingness to carry firearms, relocate, ability to report for duty within 90 days and have availability at all time( Ackerman 58). The FBI mission has been to keep pace with world events and in order to continue to do so they need the best of the best in all fields.
When I was a child my mother was NYPD and I would see her in her uniform astounded by how she wore it with pride and everyone around us always felt safe because of her. As I grew older I had changed my mind on becoming a police officer. I still wanted to be in the criminal justice system but not a police officer, I wanted to be someone to be hands on in the rehabilitation stage, and I wanted to help people. In high school I began to take classes such as criminal law, family law, forensics, juvenile delinquency etc. just to make sure this is really what I wanted to do when I was older. After graduation I was finally sure that I wanted to become FBI special agent. I began by enrolling into college and choosing my major as criminal justice but I was unaware of how many different careers a criminal justice degree could give a person. I looked into probation maybe even U.S Marshalls but I did not feel that probation would allow me to use my mind because in probation everything you say and do is by the book, a judge decides who is on probation and when they are assigned a probation officer you would basically be a babysitter. U.S Marshall also seem liked a great fit for my future but after doing some research on the career I realized that the Marshalls are just like bounty hunters, they play a game of hide and seek in a very large area. Theses seemed like great choices for me at first but I realized that I don’t want to do any of that I want to be the person who is able to use details and evidence to figure out what kind of person and victimization is in each case an helping warn the