The process of organizational socialization is examined a large, urban police department. The 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 development of a community of purpose and action among the police recruits is characterized as a four-phase socialization process. The phases are labeled choice, introduction, encounter, and metamorphosis and, while only analytically distinct, serve as useful markers for describing the route traversed by recruits. The results of the newcomers' early police experiences and adventures are cast terms of the common 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.