ABSTRACT
Of the elements of the bond to conventional society, involvement in conventional activities is most obviously relevant to delinquent behavior. This chapter turns to conventional activities that devour many of the adolescent's leisure hours, the problems of the involvement hypothesis appear to be more than methodological. Television, newspapers, magazines, comic books; basketball, football, baseball; hobbies and work around the house account for much of the leisure time of the boys in the sample. In observational accounts of gang life, the boy is often removed from delinquent activities by work or heterosexual activity. Research designed to evaluate the thesis that "idle hands are the devil's workshop", that the fundamental approach to curing delinquency involves "getting the kids off the streets" has rarely produced evidence for the effectiveness of such programs. Yet in theoretical statements, in practical programs, and in the common sense, the idea of involvement remains central to much thinking about the causation and prevention of delinquency.
