The scary truth about Alice Springs

Alice Springs is a city in the Northern territory which I hadn't actually given too much thought about aside from that it is a city that exists in the northern territory, fairly central to Australia.


It honestly looks like a beautiful city which is situated in a nice scenic location in proportion to the high hilltops around it. I hear about it from time to time being a nice place to travel to because there is a lot to do there and it is a very unique place in Australia. Up until not long ago, I had never done any sort of research on Alice Springs because it had never been relevant to me. I hadn't intended on travelling there, I didn't know anyone from there or anyone who lived there. The first time I had researched anything about it was on pure accident!!! For curiousity sake, I was googling housing in Sydney, googling places that were expensive, places that were cheaper and looking at the general locations of these places in regards to the Sydney city for the richer and poorer areas. While doing so, I became curious as to which place in Australia is actually considered the most dangerous. Funnily enough, and to a large amount of surprise, the top result was Alice Springs!

Why is it considered so dangerous?

For starters, some quick data, according to online statistics, Alice springs has a crime index of 70.35 which deems it as in the top 20 most dangerous cities in the whole world. Data on the financial year of 2021-2022 suggests that there were a staggering 12,676 crimes that were reported in the city (not including crimes that flew under the radar) which translated to roughly 473 crimes per 100,000 people. For comparison, the rate of crime in Sydney is about 34 crimes per 100,00 people. Common crimes in this area include, but are not limited to:

• Assault
• Property damage
• Theft
• Alcohol related violence

The above shows a compares the crime index among the other highest crime index cities in Australia.

In terms of classification of criminal activity, statistics show that the ratio of crimes commited against a person vs crimes committed against a property are about 2:5. House break ins, property damage and theft carry most of the weight for property crime, whilst Assault, domestic violence and alcohol related violence make up the majority of crimes committed to the person.

It has been highly recommended to not walk outside alone or at all really at night time, and suggested to catch a tax or Uber ride to your destination.

What makes it dangerous?

The number one driving cause of all of the crime related violence is because of alcohol. It is deemed that crime occurs because of the pursuit of alcohol or excessive alcohol use. There is also a lot of petty theft and break-ins due to the economic discrepancy in the area which unfortunately promotes a lot of theft and assaults. This is the main reason as to why wandering around at night in Alice Springs is so dangerous.

Personal thoughts

No matter how beautifully located and situated a city may be, there would be no chance of me going to a place that has incredibly high crime rate which limits the kind of freedom one has when exploring a place. Alice Springs may be very beautiful and being situated so close to Uluru, but I will say that place is a no from me. What do you think?