Clayton, NJ has a A safety grade (79/100) with a violent crime rate of 141 per 100,000, 60% below the national average.
Clayton is a small municipal reporter (9,191 on the UCR row). Per-100,000 violent and property rates are shown with NJ and U.S. context.
Clayton, NJ carries a PlainCrime A safety grade with violent crime 60% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Clayton, NJ shows violent crime at 141.4 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 750.7 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 60% below the U.S. average. PlainCrime assigns grade A from those rates. Figures are voluntary agency submissions joined to population denominators; incomplete coverage can move the number.
The verdict
Clayton earns an A safety grade: violent crime runs 60% below the U.S. average, placing it close to the national middle for violent crime.
Based on 13 reported violent incidents in a population of 9,191. At this volume, one additional or one fewer report can shift the rate and letter grade noticeably; small-city crime counts are inherently more volatile year to year than large-city counts, so treat this grade as a data point, not a precise ranking.
Small-count caution
Clayton reported 13 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 9,191. At this volume one additional or one fewer report moves the per-100,000 rate noticeably, so the figure is better read as a data point than as a precise measurement, and year-to-year swings here are expected.
Comparable rate records
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Clayton's 141.4 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Sea Isle City (141.0), West Orange (139.8), Lakehurst (143.3), South Amboy (139.1). These are same-year agency submissions that pass the same completeness screen, not a claim that the cities have identical conditions. They make the cohort position above checkable against named records instead of a generic state average.
2020–2024 direction
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 227.5 per 100,000 in 2020 to 141.4 in 2024 (-37.8%). The highest observed value was 227.5 in 2020 and the lowest 65.3 in 2021. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Position in the state cohort
At 141.4 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Clayton ranks 114 of 417 — above 303 of the 416 other New Jersey cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +107.6% against the cohort median of 68.1. Cities that did not report, or that reported implausibly low totals, are excluded from this cohort rather than counted as low-crime.
Offense mix
Violent offenses are 15.9% of the 82 Part I offenses reported in Clayton for 2024, against a median of 7.1% across comparable New Jersey cities — a gap of 8.7 points. Offense mix is shaped by which agencies report and how incidents are classified as well as by the underlying offenses, so it describes the reported record rather than a settled difference in conditions.
Property-offense composition
Larceny-theft is 63.8% of reported property offenses in Clayton, against a cohort median of 82.1%. The remainder is burglary (21) and motor vehicle theft (4). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
Property counts dominate Clayton's FBI UCR Table 8 municipal row. Per-100,000 rates use the reporting-year population on that row; cities that fail the completeness test stay out of rate rankings. A citywide figure rarely describes any single neighbourhood inside the municipal boundary.
Based on 13 reported violent incidents in a population of 9,191. At this volume, one additional or one fewer report can shift the rate and letter grade noticeably; small-city crime counts are inherently more volatile year to year than large-city counts, so treat this grade as a data point, not a precise ranking.
Small-city offense counts above are voluntary UCR submissions, not neighbourhood advice. Year-to-year swings can look large when the population base is modest.
| Offense | Count | Rate /100K |
|---|---|---|
| Property Crime | 69 | 750.7 |
| Larceny-Theft | 44 | 478.7 |
| Burglary | 21 | 228.5 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 4 | 43.5 |
| Arson | 0 | 0 |
| Violent Crime | 13 | 141.4 |
| Aggravated Assault | 11 | 119.7 |
| Murder | 1 | 10.9 |
| Robbery | 1 | 10.9 |
| Rape | 0 | 0 |
Lead series · fell across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
Secondary series · fell · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 8,790 | 227.5 | 785 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 9,190 | 65.3 | 337.3 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 9,017 | 133.1 | 454.7 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 9,008 | 77.7 | 766 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 9,191 | 141.4 | 750.7 |
Clayton's crime figures on this page originate from Clayton Police Department's submission to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting Program.
This agency reports via NIBRS, the incident-based system that captures more detail per offense (multiple crimes per incident, victim/offender data) than the older summary counts.
Crime rates read differently at different scales, so these are the New Jersey cities closest to Clayton in population. Their populations run from 9,023 to 9,314, against 9,191 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
These New Jersey cities report the closest violent-crime rates to Clayton's 141.4/100K (same FBI UCR vintage rules; size peers above are excluded so the two lists stay distinct).
Small-city read: Clayton is sourced from FBI UCR Table 8 for 2024; rates use that row's population.
Small-city rows use the same per-100,000 formula; a few unreported years can leave gaps in the trend table. Verify the agency's submission on FBI.gov UCR.
Disclaimer (small city): UCR counts here are informational only. They are not a victimization probability. Source: FBI UCR Program.
Small-city rate methodology for how Clayton's small city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Clayton, NJ rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.
Bulk download: city crime dataset (CSV/JSON)
Every figure on PlainCrime is rendered directly from FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) source data, no number is typed in by an editor. Clayton is scored as a small-city UCR reporter (9,191 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.