Good afternoon, everyone!
My name is Caitlin, and I am an international relations senior.
I have a focus in national security,
leading me to my interest in law enforcement.
So what is the DEA?
I particularly interned at the DEA, also known as the Drug
Enforcement Administration.
Now what does the Drug Enforcement Administration do?
We do a variety of things reinforced
by this different bodies, different sectors that we have,
such as Divergence, Task Force Group
1 and 2, Asset Forfeiture, and the financial department.
We have 224 domestic offices with 21 different types
of divisions that we have.
And we have 90 foreign offices in 69 different countries.
I worked in the New England District.
I worked with the New England Division,
which covers Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont,
Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut.
Because the task force officers are only
part-time officers that work in the DEA,
I was able to go through different types
of other sectors within the DEA.
Now why, may you ask, does the DEA have only part-time task
force officers?
Because they work full-time within their districts.
I worked in Task Force 2, which has all the different districts
surrounding Boston.
So I had Boston police officers, I
had Cambridge police officers.
I worked with Everett, Maldin, different types
of officers that worked around.
So that's why they were part-time there.
In Divergence, I worked with looking at high collar
white crimes, such as going in through pharmaceuticals.
I went to look at psychiatrists and made
sure that they were prescribing medication correctly.
I looked and made sure that pharmacies
weren't selling drugs out the back door in places like CVS.
And Groups 1 and 2, I worked kind
of as a nexus between Task Force and Divergence.
So I was able to look at the different types of things
that they were doing.
I did background checks on different types of hospitals.
I made sure that they were doing everything that they
were supposed to be doing.
And if not, I went to different departments
within the State Department to give it to someone else.
Asset Forfeiture, I don't know if a lot of people
know what this is.
But I worked to make sure that, OK, so we have a drug dealer,
we convicted him, now what do we do with all of his property?
If he has four or five different houses that he could
use as a stash house, he could use as a regular cover,
I made sure that we did-- all these lawyers saying, excuse
me, person A, we have taken x, y, and z of all of your stuff.
We're going to make sure that you are notified
that we are taking your stuff.
And so you can't go in court and say,
you didn't notify that you were taking away my car.
And finally, I worked in Task Force
2, which was my primary sector.
In Task Force 2, I did background checks on suspects.
I tracked their cars.
So for example, we would have Task Force agents that
would, at, like, 2:00 in the morning, go to their car
and put a GPS system on their car,
usually underneath their car to make sure, OK,
where can we track this person?
I was able to track different people,
and I was able to identify if they were a financial carrier.
I was able to figure out where they were going,
where could their stash most likely be,
who were their frequent clients.
And I was able to use as evidence
to give the information to the police officers.
So they would ask, all right, where is person A going today?
And I would say they're likely going to this area,
based on their past history.
I have translated documents.
I was one of the only people in the office that
was able to speak Spanish.
And out of Boston, in particular, Spanish speaking
people, the amount of people was very high,
particularly in the drug department.
So I was able to translate the documents.
I was able to look at all their tax, particularly
within their evidence, and I was able to notify them, tell them
what was going on.
For example, who was doing what, who
was the main boss, what were they saying, what else
is possibly going to happen.
This is another example of one of my big projects that I did.
As you can see right here, these are little baggies
of cocaine and heroin, and these are the little background
pieces of paper that you had to fill out.
I blew it up a little bit, so this
is one paper that the task force officer would have to fill out.
You would have to do the name, the case number, description.
Here's a big blowup view of the different types of cocaine
that we did.
This is a really big drug bust that happened this past summer.
And this is one way of carrying all the different types
of drugs into the office.
Another way-- because this was during the day-- another way
if, for example, a police officer had a raid at night,
he would have to turn in all the drug evidence in these baggies
and put them in the evidence locker.
And they would end up either being
like this, very nice, fancy, small thumbnail size,
or they would be a little bit more crude in this sense.
So they would be stashed.
This is most likely from a drug dealer
that was trying to bring it from one way or to another.
I'm trying not to make it very noticeable.
To be an uncommon woman within the federal law enforcement.
Now as a person who is five foot two, very, very small,
I always thought that it wasn't possible
for me to become in law enforcement,
particularly within the FBI, which is my main goal.
I want to be a Special Agent.
But fortunately, the FBI and the CIA, in particular,
are doing a lot better job of recruiting
female federal officers.
Because they're starting to realize that you don't need
to be physically strong.
You don't need to be very big in bulk
in the stereotypical persona of a Special Agent.
You can use a lot of different skills
that females, in particular, are very, very well attuned to.
For example we're very good at de-escalating very high,
strenuous, and intense situations.
We're able to communicate.
We're able to talk.
And that's one of the big skills that women are particularly
well known for, and the thing that the police
officers and the federal officers want to pursue.
So therefore there's a high demand
for women, especially young women that
don't look the part, to go into law enforcement.
Unfortunately, within the DEA, I was only
able to find one other woman that was a Special Agent.
But that's because the DEA is still very much physically
demanding.
However, if you are able to become a woman
officer within the DEA, that's great,
because you're able to go on different undercover things.
I had a lot of takeaways from the Special Agent
that I asked questions with.
And I was very, very fortunate to have this experience.
And before I end my presentation,
I would like to thank UAF for providing me
with the financial means for this internship.
I would like to thank my parents for providing me
the moral support and emotional support
that I needed throughout this internship.
And I would very much like to thank our moderator, Professor
Andy Barger, and all of you for coming and listening
to my presentation today.
Thank you very much.