Windows were smashed to such an extent the last time Peter J Spafford's family business was broken into that he camped out for most of the night to make sure no-one else could enter the cavernous opening.
He was informed police were so busy the earliest they could get to the break-in was "maybe sometime" the next day.
Mr Spafford said a local contractor helped him board up the broken window.
But when Mr Spafford returned the next day, even more windows had been shattered.
His business, in the small Northern Territory town of Katherine, has been broken into six times in the past year.
And he is not alone.
Crime in Katherine has spiked according to the latest NT Police statistics, which show commercial break-ins up almost 134 per cent and sexual assaults almost 150 per cent higher than the same period in 2021.
"We are scared to come in every morning and find out what's been damaged and what's been broken," Mr Spafford said.
The distress has reached such a point that he and his daughter, who is a part owner, are no longer sure how long they can keep going.
"We have looked at putting the business on the market," Mr Spafford said.
"There's a lot of anxiety, stress, fear associated with the break-ins and the expectation that it's going to happen again; we don't have any confidence that it's not going to happen again.
"I cannot remember [another] time that you would walk down the main street and you see half a dozen shops with their windows broken, either waiting for repairs, boarded up or recently smashed."
He said it didn't happen 20 years ago, or even five years ago.
"It's become out of hand," he said.
Police says stats are turning
Katherine police commander Kylie Anderson said the latest crime statistics reflecting November rates, released this week, were concerning.
But she said they were starting to turn around now that people had returned from Christmas breaks and a strike force team had ramped up action against property crime.
"There's no good news stories in those crime stats, all categories are higher than the previous period," she said.
She said alcohol, cash, food, electronics and jewellery were being targeted.
She said poverty, housing overcrowding, poor education and family relationships were driving the rising rates of domestic violence and break-ins.
She said strike force teams had found that social media and copycat behaviour were also big players in driving up rates.
"Peer pressure, being goaded into it by mates and social media does play a part … things like TikTok and other social media platforms and seeing what other people are doing, and wanting to replicate that," she said.
She said the crew dealt with 67 confirmed domestic disturbances last week alone, and highlighted a whole community approach was needed to make a difference.
"We're never going to arrest our way out of these issues," she said.
"Police are the tail end of this, we're there when things have gone catastrophically terrible, so the focus needs to be at the start of the chain, but also on really good community based programs."
Association calls for staffing review
Northern Territory Police Association acting president Owen Blackwell said crime levels in Katherine had become unacceptable and the force was "seriously understaffed".
The association is calling on the NT government to conduct a review of staffing levels, with the last one completed over a decade ago.
"About 80 per cent of members in Katherine are probationary," Mr Blackwell said.
"Those very junior members are asked to do a lot with the level of experience they have."
The Katherine community was asked late last year to back a bold approach to tackle crime called Justice Reinvestment — a project built around diverting money from the costly prison system to community-led programs that addressed the underlying causes of crime.
The community is still waiting to hear if Katherine will be one of the 30 towns funded under the Albanese government's $81.5 million initiative — but Mr Blackwell said he backed the move.
"Our members feel like it's a revolving door. There's nothing that they can achieve with that — they're simply there to put people before the courts," he said.
"Anything that courts have at their powers to reinvigorate some local justice decision making would be great."
