Many people break laws, but only some become "criminals."

Police and court resources may be unevenly applied across neighborhoods and social groups.

Campus misconduct, for example, is prosecuted less often due to university handling.

For 35 years, I taught a course called "Psychology and Law" in a small college town in Wisconsin. Every year I asked my students the same question: Where are the high crime areas in town? Every year the students identified two neighborhoods whose residents are mostly low-income persons of color.

I told my students, "You're not wrong. The people living in those neighborhoods do, in fact, have higher rates of arrests and convictions. But what if I changed the question and asked you to identify the parts of town where there's a lot of illegal behavior?" Invariably, a few students would look at each other and say, sheepishly, "Honestly, there's a lot of illegal behavior right here on campus, in the dorms and Greek houses."

The students were right, of course. Lots of illegal stuff happens every day on almost every college campus in the United States. Everything from underage drinking, petty theft, and fraud to disorderly conduct, battery, selling drugs, and sexual assault.

The Applied Resources Model

Making a distinction between crime and lawbreaking leads to several valuable insights. Studies have found that large numbers of people engage in illegal activity, but only some people become criminals (e.g.,........

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