ABSTRACT
Interacting dynamically with motivation, suitable targets shape the opportunity structure for, and trajectory of, criminal events in discrete contexts. Target selection and enactment are merged into one continuous process. This chapter explores the dynamic tension, and how it shapes the form and content of drug robbers' decisions. At the most basic level, target-selection is about operating when settings are most likely to be victim-rich. Though drug robbery is attractive because it lacks official sanction threats, police can stumble on such offenses just as easily as any other enacted on the open street. Given the microstructural and geographic constraints under which the drug robbers operated, the importance of surveillance and focused observation becomes self-evident. Opportunistic robberies are "spur-of-the-moment" affairs that involve little in the way of advance planning or "casing" of targets. Criminologists suggest that targeting strategies are effective indicators of the degree of calculation offenders bring to any crime sequence.
