Routine Activities, Criminal Opportunities, Crime and Crime Prevention

A theoretical framework focused on crime as a function of situation-specific opportunity emerged in the field of criminology in the latter part of the twentieth century. This framework consists of several overlapping yet distinct theories, including routine activities theory. Though routine activities theory is perhaps most notable, a number of other perspectives emphasizing situational opportunity were developed around the same time as the initial explication of routine activities theory. Today, the overlap in these distinct theoretical statements is widely recognized, and they are thus increasingly treated in an integrative fashion, so as to create a more general crime opportunity perspective.