Darwin has per capita the highest crime rate of any Australian city, while Alice Springs has the second highest crime rate of any Australian city (and the highest murder rate). Criminal activity is fought by the Northern Territory Police.
1891 – Constable Willshire of Alice Springs mounted police was tried for murder of aborigines in Hermannsburg and was acquitted in Port Augusta
1928 – Coniston massacre, massacre by Constable William Murray and "Nugget" Morton who led a revenge party through the Coniston area following the murder of dingo-trapper Fred Brooks by Aborigines.
1 August 1933 – Dhakiyarr Wirrpanda murdered Constable Albert McColl in a highly controversial case.
5 January 1977 — Connellan air disaster, murder-suicide when a sacked pilot deliberately flew a light aircraft into Connair building, Alice Springs airport
23 June 1983 – Martin Leach bound, gagged and stabbed Charmaine Ariet and bound, gagged, stabbed, raped and slit the throat of her cousin Janice Carnegie before burying their bodies in a gully.
18 August 1983 – Douglas Crabbe rammed his 25-ton Mack truck into a motel bar at the base of Uluru, killing 5 people.
1985 – Douglas Scott was murdered in Darwin's Berrimah Jail, later dismissed by the Darwin Supreme Court.
1999 – Rodney Ansell, inspiration for the 1986 film, Crocodile Dundee, killed Sergeant Glen Hutison before being killed by police.
2001 – Peter Falconio disappearance – British tourist disappears on 14 July 2001
March 2004 – Darwin sex workers Phuangsri Kroksamrang, 58, and Somjai Insamnan, 27, were bound with cable ties and thrown alive into the Adelaide River near Darwin by Ben William McLean and Phu Ngoc Trinh.
2 February 2010 – A disgruntled customer used a trolley based device and bombed the Territory Insurance Office in Darwin City injuring 15.
Crime is a significant social issue in Alice Springs. The main source of crime is Alice Spring's large unemployed population of Aboriginal residents, who live in camps throughout the town, and in camps nearby.
The Australian Institute of Crime's 2014 Northern Territory Safe Streets Audit found that factors that contributed to a heightened fear of crime in the Northern Territory was a perception that crime is more frequent and serious than it actually is, lower levels of confidence in the police and the impact sensationalist media coverage.
The Audit analysed articles in the Centralian Advocate, NT News and Sunday Territorian for the first week of May in 2010, 2011 and 2012 showed that between six and 10 percent of news coverage was devoted to crime. Crimes involving violence, especially sexual violence, were overrepresented compared with other crime types. Although victims’ and offenders’ Indigeneity were typically not identified, crimes featuring Indigenous offenders and non-Indigenous victims received greater coverage than other crimes in the weeks analysed.
