Perspectives of Identity Development in Young Adults and the Professional Socialization of Police Recruits

This paper proposes a literature review which seeks to establish links between contemporary notions of young adults’ identity development, namely, individualization, social identity and socio-professional insertion, and the unique police recruit’s professional socialization. For these recruits, enrollment in the police culture that is believed to be, by some authors, unique and assimilative, engages young adults in a singular process of identity accommodation. Parallels traced between general young adult’s developmental realities and police recruits’ specificities suggest that young adults joining police ranks are at odds in the current movement which pushes youths to capitalize on their own resources rather than normative structures in the process of individualization.