ABSTRACT
Control theories assume that delinquent acts result when an individual's bond to society is weak or broken. This chapter begins with a classification and description of the elements of the bond to conventional society. If attachment to others is the sociological counterpart of the superego or conscience, commitment is the counterpart of the ego or common sense. The beliefs that free a man to commit deviant acts are unmotivatedin the sense that he does not construct or adopt them in order to facilitate the attainment of illicit ends. The chapter turns to the question of specifying the unit to which the person is presumably more or less tied, and to the question of the adequacy of the motivational force built into the explanation of delinquent behavior. Involvement or engrossment in conventional activities is thus often part of a control theory.
