Environmental criminology emphasizes that crime opportunities are shaped by micro-level features of the built environment, yet less is known about how these effects vary across neighborhood contexts for theft. This study examines police-recorded theft across 6,991 street segments nested within 15 neighborhoods in Aalst, Belgium (2023–2024), using multilevel negative binomial models. Theft was associated with intersection density, linearity, road type, human activity intensity, residential instability, and ethnic diversity. Cross-level interactions showed that street-level opportunity effects varied by neighborhood context, with most being stronger in more socially advantaged neighborhoods, highlighting the contextual nature of theft opportunities.
Walle et al. (Tue,) studied this question.