RECEIVED
JAN    17    1973

M.  I.  T.  LIdKAKlES


Abstract

The  process  of  organizational  socialization  is  examined  in  a
large,  urban  police  department.   This  interpenetration  and  eventual
fusion  by  which  persons  acquire  the  motives,  sentiments  and  behavioral
patterns  of  the  occupational  culture  is  viewed  from  the  perspective
of  the  novitiates  "breaking-in"  to  a  police  department.   The  develop-
ment of  a  community  of  purpose  and  action  among  the  police  recruits
is  characterized  as  a  four-phase  socialization  process.   The  phases
are  labelled  choice,  introduction,  encounter  and  metamorphosis  and,
while  only  analytically  distinct,  serve  as  useful  markers  for  des-
cribing the  route  traversed  by  recruits.   The  results  of  the  newcomers'
early  police  experiences  and  adventures  are  cast  in  terms  of  the  com-
mon culture  shared  by  police  officers.   Progress  along  the  socialization
continuum  is  seen  as  the  gradual  incorporation  of  an  "in  the  same  boat"
collective  consciousness  stressing  a  "don't  make  waves"  occupational
philosophy.
C3G63S


OBSERVATIONS  ON  THE  MAKING  OF  POLICEMEN
In  recent  years  the  so-called  "police  problem"  has  become  one  of
the  more  institutionalized  topics  of  routine  conversation  in  this
society.   Regardless  whether  one  views  the  police  as  friend  or  foe,
virtually  everyone  has  a  set  of  "cop  stories"  to  relate  to  willing
listeners.   Although  most  stories  dramatize  personal  encounters  and
are  situationally  specific,  there  is  a  common  thread  running  through
these  frequently  heard  accounts.   Indeed,  in  such  stories  the  police
are  almost  always  depicted  as  a  homogenous  occupational  grouping  some-
how quite  different  than  most  other  men.
