(NewsNation) — A study by Matthew Robinson at Appalachian State University revealed that criminologists can become what they study: criminals.

Robinson sent out anonymous surveys to over 500 criminologists, asking them if they had ever committed a crime, and many people said yes. The most common confessions involved theft. The survey did not ask about murder.

NewsNation’s Ashleigh Banfield asked: Does the study of criminology encourage people to commit crimes?

University of Idaho killing suspect Bryan Kohberger was attending Washington State University as a Ph.D. student in the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology at the time of his arrest. He also reportedly earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology in 2020.

Criminologist and professor Casey Jordan has conducted a similar test to Robinson by anonymously asking her criminologist students the same question.

“We’re trying to demonstrate the dark figure of crime, which is the amount of crime that happens … That doesn’t come into the official data, the Uniform Crime Report that’s put out by the FBI,” Jordan said Monday night on “Banfield.”

For 35 years, Jordan has asked more than 6,000 students from her introduction to criminology class if they’ve ever committed a crime.

“We’ve had every crime under the sun including a lot of what you would expect students to be committing,” Jordan said. However, “Over 35 years, four students have self-reported that they’ve committed homicide. Murder.”