New Jersey: The Best and Worst Cities for Crime

Beach Haven, a popular Jersey Shore destination, has the nation’s 22nd-highest property crime rate.
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Derek Prall
July 24, 2024 Derek Prall Derek Prall , Home Security Expert | July 24, 2024
Statewide Crime Trends in New Jersey Property Crime in New Jersey Violent Crime in New Jersey

While the state of New Jersey as a whole has some of the lowest crime rates in the country, the same can’t be said for some of its cities and towns. In fact, one New Jersey community, Beach Haven, has one of the nation’s highest rates of property crimes like theft and burglary.

But tourism data would seem to indicate that Beach Haven’s rank of 22 out of some 7,000 communities with available data has more to do with its small permanent population and popularity as a destination along the Long Beach Island shore. A recent survey of Long Beach Island tourists showed that Beach Haven was the most popular destination in the region.

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Property Crime in New Jersey

When determining property crime rates in New Jersey, we looked at larceny-theft, burglary, and motor vehicle theft incidents.

  • New Jersey’s total property crime rate per 100,000 people is 1,417, which is more than 500 points lower than the overall U.S. rate of 1,954 per 100,000.
  • New Jersey ranks 42nd among the 50 states for property crime, just two positions better than neighboring Pennsylvania.
  • Larceny continues to be the most common property crime in New Jersey, as it is everywhere else in the country, with about 1,109 incidents per 100,000 people.

New Jersey Property Crime Rates

Violent Crime in New Jersey

Violent crimes include murder/non-negligent homicide, aggravated assault, rape, and robbery, and they’re far less common than property crimes.

  • New Jersey’s overall violent crime rate is 203 per 100,000 people — or just over half of the U.S. rate of 381 per 100,000.
  • New Jersey ranks 45th among all 50 states for its overall violent crime rate.
  • The state has the lowest rate of rape among all states.

New Jersey Violent Crime Rates

Our data

Our data comes from comprehensive reporting compiled by the FBI and accessed via the Crime Data Explorer website. Property and violent crime state figures were drawn from Table 5 of the 2022 Crime in the U.S. Report. Metropolitan figures were found in Table 6, Crime in the U.S. by Metropolitan Statistical Area. City-level figures were drawn from Table 8, Offenses Known to Law Enforcement by State by City. The population figures in that table are U.S. Census Bureau provisional estimates as of July 1, 2020.

Limitations: According to the FBI, the data in the publication tables may differ from those released on the Explorer Pages of the CDE. These variations are due to the difference in methodologies between the publication tables and data displayed on the CDE. Please note that crime statistics are not the sole measure of a city’s safety.

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