This paper advances a comparative conflict theory of racial and ethnic similarities and differences in youth perceptions of criminal injustice. We use HLM models to test six conflict hypotheses with data from more than 18,000 Chicago public school students. At the micro-level African American youth are more vulnerable to police contacts than are Latinos, who are more at risk than whites, and there is a corresponding gradient in minority group perceptions of injustice. When structural sources of variation in adolescents' experiences are taken into account, however, minority youth perceptions of criminal injustice appear more similar to one another, while remaining distinct from those of white youth. At the micro-level, Latino youth respond more strongly and negatively to police contacts, even though they experience fewer of them. At the macrolevel, as white students in schools increase cross-sectionally, perceptions of injustice among both African American and Latino youth at first intensify and then ultimately abate. Although there are again signs of a gradient, African American and Latino responses to school integration also are as notable in their similarities as in their differences. Reduced police contacts and meaningful school integration are promising mechanisms for diminishing both adolescent African American and Latino perceptions of criminal injustice.

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Several theoretical traditions offer insights into individual success in conventionalactivities. We extend this work, suggesting thatexplanations ofsuccess also apply tocrime: although prosperity in licit orillicit activities has several unique antecedents, success in either endeavor isinfluenced bycommon faactors. Most research onconventional success focuses on the effects of human and social capital, and criminal forms of these are important for illegal success. We argue that various aspects of conventional personal capital-a heightened desire forwealth, a propensity for risk-taking, a willingness to cooperate and competence -also play important roles in both legal and illegal prosperity. We demonstrate the importance ofvarious types ofcapital, particularly the salience ofpersonal capital, withdata ondrug-selling income.In the late 1960s, Gary Becker (1996) provocatively argued that the decision to commit economic crimes resembles other productive choices such as the decision to seek employment. Several economists and sociologists have extended Becker's idea, studying crime in ways that resemble employment studies.' Yet, labor studies differ from research on offending: investigations of employment often extend the examination of who does and does not work, exploring occupational success and the attainment of prestigious jobs and higher earnings, whereas studies of crime typically ignore illegal prosperity and criminological theories offer few insights on this topic. Indeed) the perspective of two influential criminologists appears to be shared by many researchers; according to Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990:44) there

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