Date of Conferral

2023

Degree

Ph.D.

School

Psychology

Advisor

Barbara Palomino Del Velasco

Abstract

There are well defined systemic challenges to managing, recruiting, and retaining the best border enforcement agents available amongst given candidates. The ability to identify and define specific attitudes and attributes within those agents who are considered high performers is something that could be of tremendous value to law enforcement agency managers. The need for information to cultivate the highest level of performance is magnified given the events in the United States that followed the death of George Floyd at the hands of law enforcement in May of 2020. In the effort to identify those attributes within high performance border agents, twelve different agents were interviewed who were considered high performers by their agency. The primary purpose of the interviews was to extract data related to their general worldview and life experiences, outside of law enforcement. The subsequent analysis revealed several distinct common experience and responses to external challenges amongst all or most of the participants. The study revealed that most participants felt that their experience in law enforcement had been able to assist them in developing better resistance to antagonism and that they did not respond to provocation. These data can be used as a tool to better understand those high performers and to help identify the same in existing staff or new applicants. By identifying and retaining the officers who can perform in the field at exceptional levels, you can effect positive social change by fostering the relationship between those agencies and those who are policed.

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