Opportunity extended — via development of an interactive counterterrorism toolkit

From its origins in Crime as Opportunity and related papers, through to its current incorporation within crime science, the concept of opportunity has played an important role in research and practice. Yet much of the thinking behind the concept has remained implicit, intuitive and static. A chance to take the concept forward in a practical, yet rigorous way arose when developing a detailed interactive toolkit to guide security managers of large and complex stations to prevent, and prepare responses to, terrorist attacks and other crimes more typical of such places. We describe the requirement for the toolkit; the conceptual architecture we developed, with particular reference to opportunity and how it meshes with other crime science concepts such as crime precipitation, and with broader concepts from traditional security practice such as threat and risk management; and the practical realisation through a process that matches security actions to the threat posed by terrorists/criminals and the risk generated in the particular environment of complex stations. We finish by considering how the development of the toolkit advanced the concept of opportunity.