ABSTRACT
Understanding the informal processes of socialization and how the human desire to fit in affects idealistic recruits, cadets, and officers, we can comprehend the pressures on those who succumb to the ethical slide toward the group’s expected illicit or illegal behaviors. The unit selected as the focus of this project (special operations groups, or SOGs) has the greatest potential for experiencing the transformations of liminality. The examination of liminality should not be viewed as something mysterious. Instead, it is studied in the context of a series of logical progressions through the occupational trajectory of a career. Most frequently, an officer realizes these stage changes because of a failure of the institution to properly supervise and hold the individual responsible. A series of “if this, then that” logic matrixes (see Figure 2.1) better serves to illustrate the points of transition. In an institution founded upon strict adherence to policies and regulations for efficiency, effectiveness, and safety, supervision and management are critical. The absence of these promotes an atmosphere of irregular behaviors based on a lack of consequences for improper decisions.
