ABSTRACT
Criminal opportunities are now recognized as an important cause of all crime, because without an opportunity, there cannot be a crime. In the past few decades, the study of crime has increasingly focused on the situational and ecological factors that create or facilitate opportunities for street crime. In regard to white-collar crime, lure and the credibility of oversight may be the most appropriate ways to conceptualize criminal opportunities, because white-collar crimes almost always represent perversions of legitimate economic activities. Criminal opportunities are exploited through the use of particular techniques, especially deception, and through the offender's specialized access to the crime target. That is, in order to take advantage of a criminal opportunity, the offender often has to know how to use a particular technique and have access to the opportunity to use it. Unlike ordinary street criminals, white-collar offenders often do not have to come into direct contact with their victims. The physical actions of white-collar offenders almost always have the superficial appearance of legitimacy.
