A Case Study in Government Enabling Lawlessness

The Northern Territory isn’t suffering from a crime wave, it’s enduring a collapse in consequences. What’s unfolding in places like Alice Springs, Katherine, and Darwin isn’t the natural result of poverty, racism, or neglect. It’s the predictable outcome of governmental cowardice, bureaucratic indulgence, and a judiciary more concerned with optics than outcomes.

When violent assaults, break-ins, and youth rampages become daily events, it’s not the sign of a broken society, it’s a sign of a state refusing to enforce order. The formula is simple, criminals test boundaries. When those boundaries don’t push back, they disappear. What takes their place is chaos, wrapped in bureaucratic language and funded by taxpayers.

The NT’s political class has mastered the art of sounding busy while doing nothing. They host inquiries, draft statements, and roll out “culturally appropriate initiatives” that do everything but stop the violence. The result? Crime rates in the NT remain multiple times higher than the national average, particularly for property offences, assaults, and juvenile crime. In some areas, children commit more crimes than they attend school days. That’s not failure, that’s state-enabled delinquency.

Rather than enforce accountability, policymakers double down on dysfunction. Offenders aren’t punished, they’re coddled. Victims aren’t protected, they’re patronised. Police aren’t empowered, they’re scrutinised. The message is clear, the system has more empathy for the offender than for the law-abiding citizen.

The bureaucratic addiction to explanation over enforcement has turned policing into paperwork and justice into a negotiation. Entire departments exist to “explore trauma-informed responses” while the traumatising continues unchecked. Youth crime programs swallow funding with zero measurable success, and when one fails, a new one takes its place, under a different acronym but with the same impotent core.

Behind this is a political class allergic to deterrence. They treat lawbreakers as victims of circumstance, not agents of choice. But crime is not a mystery. It follows incentives. When government removes punishment and replaces it with understanding, the incentive to obey evaporates.

This isn’t theoretical. It’s been measured. Suburbs with a stronger police presence, proactive patrolling, and judicial certainty see lower crime rates, regardless of race, income, or history. Meanwhile, the NT floods its communities with taxpayer-funded services that never ask the one question that matters, who’s responsible?

The solution doesn’t need to be invented, it needs to be allowed. Let police do their jobs without bureaucratic muzzle. Let courts apply swift, predictable punishment instead of activist leniency. Let public safety take priority over political narratives.

Until that happens, crime will not just persist, it will escalate. And every dollar spent on programs that excuse rather than deter will continue to subsidise the very lawlessness they claim to fight. In the NT, the real problem isn’t crime, it’s the government’s refusal to stop it. From the author.

The opinions and statements are those of Sam Wilks and do not necessarily represent whom Sam Consults or contracts to. Sam Wilks is a skilled and experienced Security and Risk Consultant with 3 decades of expertise in the fields of Real estate, Security, and the hospitality/gaming industry. Sam has trained over 1,000 entry level security personnel, taught defensive tactics, weapons training and handcuffs to policing personnel and the public. His knowledge and practical experience have made him a valuable asset to many organisations looking to enhance their security measures and provide a safe and secure environment for their clients and staff.