- The most common definition of a
fugitive is a person who is fleeing from legal custody, whether
it be from an arrest to someone who is sought for questioning.
However it may also mean someone who flees from an uncongenial
situation or a synonym of the adjective "fleeting."
Check out what we are planning to do with
Fugitives.com! (Updated 7/12/2007)
- Referring to the most common use
of the term, fugitives are persons who are actively concealing
themselves in an effort to avoid criminal prosecution. Many
types of law enforcement careers, both public and private actively engage people
whose job it is to find and recover those who are missing or
most wanted from
the criminal justice system; public sector jobs include police
officers at the state, county and city levels and
Federal law
enforcement agents such as members of the U.S. Marshal Service
and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
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- Incidentally, did you know that
in fiscal year 2006, the U.S. Marshals arrested more than 38,000
Federal fugitive felons, clearing 41,300 federal felony warrants
– more than all other law enforcement agencies combined?
Working with authorities at the federal, state, and local
levels, U.S. Marshals-led fugitive task forces arrested more
than 46,800 state and local fugitives, clearing 54,300 state and
local felony warrants.
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- Jobs in the private sector most
often involve bail bondsmen, bail enforcement agents (commonly
referred to as a bounty
hunter or fugitive recovery agent) and private investigators working on behalf of a
bail bondsman looking for a client who has failed to appear in
court; these people are often called "bail
jumpers". The bounty hunting business has become hot since Duane
Chapman's television show "Dog the Bounty Hunter" and
Sandra Scott's "Wife, Mom, Bounty Hunter."
-
- Whichever career path you choose
there is no greater reward in life than chasing, then capturing
a wanted person! Perhaps Ernest Hemmingway said it best,
-
- "There is no hunting like the
hunting of men, especially armed men, and those who have done
this long enough to like it...they never care for anything else
thereafter."
-
- So... how do you catch a
fugitive?
-
- It all starts with the right
training; this is not a game! Techniques used to locate a fugitive will run the
entire gamut available to the professional skip tracer and
involve commercial databases, telephone calls, pretexting, field
interviews, canvassing with wanted posters, public records,
private records, utility searches, Internet research,
surveillance, “dumpster diving” and finding an informant. New
tools and technology are constantly making the investigation
-
- Outstanding books are available
that specifically cover how to
become a bail enforcement
agent; I highly recommend “Apprehending Bail Fugitives” by
Scott Harrell, a
Pensacola private
investigator, as a complete reference to the bail fugitive
recovery business. I have read them all and the online course
is, by far, the best source of material I have had the
opportunity to get my hands on. I'd suggest you do the same.
Good luck and Happy Hunting! |