The present article examines the key concepts underlying victimization theories (i.e., exposure, proximity, target attractiveness, guardianship). Measures of each concept are developed and evaluated in terms of their ability to explain individuals' risks of residential burglary, personal theft, and personal violence. Using data from 5,271 respondents in the British Crime Survey, mixed empirical support is found for the structural-choice model underlying current victimization theories. Specifically, the structural components of these theories (proximity and exposure) are more consistently related to victimization experiences than the target-selection or choice components (attractiveness and guardianship). Multiplicative models that test for interaction among these major variables also produce results that are contrary to theoretical productions. The authors conclude that present theories do not adequately describe individuals' risks of victimization and discuss some alternative directions for future research on criminal victimization.

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Studies of prison violence typically focus either on individual-level aggression or large-scale collective acts. Most past work consists of case studies, limiting the generalizations from the results. The present study used data from 371 state prisons and measures of both individual and collective violence and attempted to identify the structural, managerial, and environmental determinants of prison disorder. Findings suggest that poor prison management is a predictor of rates of assault toward inmates and staff. However, the likelihood of prison riots is largely independent of structural, managerial, and environmental factors. The article also discusses the implications for public policy.

Recent contextual analyses of victimization survey data are extended by application of hierarchical logistic model techniques. Using a multistage sample of 5,090 Seattle residents, we estimate models for individuals' risks of violent crime and burglary victimization as a function of both individual crime opportunity factors (routine activity and personal lifestyle) and contextual indicators of neighborhood social disorganization (neighborhood incivilities on conditions of disorder, ethnic heterogeneity, and neighborhood density in terms of both residents and strangers). Strong contextual direct effects of density, disorder, and heterogeneity are observed for violent andor burglary risks. Further, the hierarchical method used here provides a richer type of contextual analysis, indicating that neighborhood factors also "condition" the impact of crime opportunity factors for risk of both violent and burglary victimization. Implications for theoretical integration, victimization prevention strategies, and crime control policies are discussed.Recent research has emphasized the complementary nature of macrosocial (group, contextual, or aggregate) and micro (individual-level) factors in the explanation of variation in crime and delinquency (see, e.g., Bursik, 1988;Simcha-Fagan and Schwartz, 1986). This multilevel approach contrasts with classical macro-social analyses of the effects of characteristics of aggregate units (e.g., neighborhoods, schools, cities, nations) on crime and with conventional micro-level analyses of variations in crime across individuals with different characteristics. The new focus is on the CRIMINOLOGY VOLUME 32 NUMBER 3 1994 387 2. These brief summaries of the social disorganization and criminal opportunity approaches focus on their applications to explaining variations in criminal victimization. Each theory is more general than this, and has been applied to explain variation in crime rates across geographical units and in crime rates over time.

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