Cartographic analysis of territorical reliance between criminal acts and alcohol selling places in vilnius city

The goal of this research was set out to determine the territorial reliance of crime which is related with place of alcohol distribution in Vilnius city. Hypothesis of this paper states that criminal activities and incident places correlate with the place of alcohol distribution. The tasks that were set out to complete the research included the scientific literature analysis, which is related with crime places that are affected by the accessibility of alcohol distribution, the goal to accurately map out the locations of alcohol distributions in the city of Vilnius, to accurately map out criminal activities that were recorded in 2016 in the city of Vilnius, to analyze territorial reliance of crime that is related with locations of alcohol distribution in Vilnius city. During the research there were three data groups: literature sources, statistical data, and spatial data. These methods were used to accomplish the tasks: literature analysis, statistical analysis and cartographical-geographical analysis. Scientific literature review contains the reviews of foreign as well as Lithuanian literature that is related with alcohol or general drug dispersion in the context of criminal activity. There is plenty of foreign scientific literature of such topic and this phenomenon is analyzed in a broad methodological spectrum. Lithuanian crime researches are more related though general crime dispersion in space or time, compared with various socioeconomic indicators (unemployment, education, income) or compared with urban environment (infrastructure expansion intensity, height of the buildings, material basis, etc.). Even though there are quite some works related with criminal activities in regard with drugs, not much is found on geographical-cartographical analysis, in terms of criminal activity and alcohol distribution places and their correlation. The methodology is introduced in the second part of the paper. It is particularly important to prepare the data for further analysis. The data that is used for this research contains Lithuanian Police Department data base which includes criminal accidents of 2016, also a data base that is provided by licensing department of Vilnius city municipality, which consists of the list of all places of Vilnius that have a right to merchandise alcoholic beverages. After selecting the right criminal activities and valid merchandising licenses the data had to be geolocalized. After geolocalization of the data, further process included the transfer of grid network that was provided by Lithuanian Statistical Department of Vilnius city. For the third part, results of the paper, four maps were created. They were used to describe the general overview of common criminal activities and alcohol selling places. To help analyze mutual relations between alcohol distribution places and criminal activity places, five maps were created (1 main and 4 detailed). The results reveal that different parts of Vilnius city are characterized with different alcohol distribution and criminal activity relations. In central parts of Vilnius city it gets hard to perceive the mutual relation, since among the decisive variables there is a greater influence of centers of attraction, such as touristic places, increased flows of residents, etc. However, in a bit more secluded part of the city it gets easier to see the conformities and they are quite apparent and confirming the assumption that alcohol distribution places have higher amounts 44 of criminal activities, and the strength of this influence is proven by crime reduction which is seen towards the periphery. The results also made it clear that when evaluating the relation between such variables, it is essential to rely on supplemental statistical indicators