J. Edgar Hoover Case Study

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In 1908, the Attorney General of the United States, Charles J. Bonaparte established the Bureau of Investigation of the Department of Justice (BOI). His aim was to “investigate violation of laws in the United States and collecting evidence in cases in which the U.S. is involved.” The bureau’s power would be limited due to the fact that most government departments already had investigative measures in place. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), as it was later named, took a turn when Attorney General Harlan Stone appointed John Edgar Hoover as acting director of the FBI on May 10, 1924 (Current Biography 254). In turn, J. Edgar Hoover, by incorporating new scientific advances, reinventing the “agent”, and taking down gangsters, enlarged
It all started with the agent. The previous director, William Burns, would often hire politicians or unqualified personnel as agents. Hoover, being a Progressive and a reformer, wanted to turn the BOI into a professional, well-respected Department. He required special agents to go through multiple interviews and background checks as well as physical testing to make certain that all the men were qualified for the job (Current Biography 255). Additionally, he also reinstated legal training by establishing the FBI National Police Academy, in 1935, in Quantico, Virginia to not only train agents, but also police officers from all around the nation (Kelly 32). This academy trained officers on how to conduct investigations. Officers then took this information and trained the staff in their region (Current Biography 255). This would ensure that techniques learned by the nation’s top investigative department would also be shared with officers and facilities around the
However, this was only half of his original task. His next job was to make the FBI a “scientific and professional law enforcement agency” (Rosenfeld 405). This would involve taking advantage of the newest scientific technologies available. He began by establishing a campaign whose aim was to collect fingerprints from all Americans in order to help protect society and solve crimes (Kylig 179). This may be his most esteemed accomplishment as fingerprinting is one of the most widely used processes in the justice system. Along with a fingerprint registry, he also established a crime registry that would collect information from agencies nationwide and publish crime statistics. In the years to come, he would establish an FBI crime laboratory. This made it easier to conduct investigations and to examine evidence more thoroughly. This laboratory was accessible to all law enforcement agencies nationwide respectively. Among all of these advances, he also established the “Ten Most Wanted” list. This helped the FBI keep track of criminals who were the biggest threat to society (Kylig 180). This ultimately helped Hoover achieve his goal of creating a scientific and professional law enforcement agency (Current Biography 254; Rosenfeld

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