Wilcox, Pamela, Kenneth C. Land, and Scott A. Hunt: multicontextual opportunity Theory

Marie Skubak Tillyer

Pamela Wilcox, Kenneth C. Land, and Scott A. Hunt's multicontextual criminal opportunity theory explains how individual-level and environmental-level opportunity affect the likelihood of crime events. Many criminologists have acknowledged the role of opportunity in explaining crime and victimization. Lawrence E. Cohen and Marcus Felson's routine activity theory, in particular, has informed both individual-level and environmental-level opportunity models of crime and victimization, suggesting that routine activities will determine the likelihood that the necessary elements of a crime—a motivated offender and a suitable target in the absence of capable guardians—will converge in time and space. In addition, multilevel opportunity models have been used to explore the ways in which environmental factors might condition, or moderate, the effects of individual-level opportunity on crime and victimization risk. In other words, these models explore whether there are cross-level interactions (i.e., the effects of individual-level factors on crime vary depending on the environmental-level context) that Despite ...

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