The rise in crime against a person in rapidly growing cities poses significant risks to societies and economies, affecting both microeconomic and macroeconomic aspects. This trend could potentially deter economic performance and domestic investment. Consequently, this study aims to analyze the impact of crime against a person on domestic investment in Dubai spanning 1989–2021. Dubai is considered an emerging economy and a highly competitive global city. It is also acknowledged as one of the world’s smart cities. This study employed the novel nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) approach to investigate the impact of both the escalation and contraction of crime against a person on domestic investment in Dubai. The findings exhibit that the fluctuation in crime against a person has an asymmetrical impact on domestic investment. In addition, estimations of the positive and negative long-run asymmetric coefficients indicate that crime against a person has a negative impact on domestic investment in Dubai.