Misbehave in a Northern state — caught (3,2)
I believe the answer is:
act up
'misbehave' is the definition.
(acting up is a kind of misbehaving)
'a northern state caught' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'a' is within the answer.
'northern' could be 'up' (eg in the term 'upstate') and 'up' is located in the answer.
'caught' could be 'ct' and 'ct' is found within the answer.
This accounts for all the letters.
This may be the basis of clue (or it may be nonsense).
'in' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for act up that I've seen before include "Become unpleasant" , "Behave badly, cause trouble - like thespian?" , "Mess about" , "Informally, behave badly or cause trouble" , "go wrong" .)