Spatial and Temporal Analysis of Urban Crime Factors in Kaunas City, Lithuania

Crime is a negative phenomenon that can highly influence the economic and social state of an area and is relevant to every country in the world. Crimes are recognized to be one of the main factors that disrupt a healthy society, as it can cause a disruption of its state, by leaving the limitations of insecurity, anxiety, and mental distress among the citizens. This article aims to investigate spatio-temporal dimensions which affect the urban crime level in the city of Kaunas. The research question – to what extent do population density, age and unemployment rate affect the Urban Crime in the city of Kaunas, Lithuania (2008–2021)? The mapping of crime prevalence has demonstrated that population density in different parts of the city has a direct correlation with the amount of crime. However, this relationship weakens as one moves away from the central parts of the city. Also, crimes are the most prominent in the middle of the city of Kaunas and become rarer when moving out. The relationship between mean age of population and crime prevalence showed a bell-shaped curve, and therefore the hypothesis that there is an association between age structure of population and crime prevalence is partially supported. However, due to lack of data, the relationship between the age structure of the population and the crime prevalence in that area could not be found statistically reliable.