Dunellen, NJ has a A safety grade (83/100) with a violent crime rate of 93 per 100,000, 73% below the national average.
Dunellen is a small municipal reporter (8,561 on the UCR row). Per-100,000 violent and property rates are shown with NJ and U.S. context.
Dunellen, NJ carries a PlainCrime A safety grade with violent crime 73% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Dunellen, NJ shows violent crime at 93.4 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 829.3 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 73% 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
Dunellen earns an A safety grade: violent crime runs 73% below the U.S. average, placing it safer than most U.S. cities.
Based on 8 reported violent incidents in a population of 8,561. 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
Dunellen reported 8 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 8,561. 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 Dunellen's 93.4 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Wayne Township (93.8), West Milford Township (93.0), Prospect Park (95.1), Clark Township (95.2). 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 69.5 per 100,000 in 2020 to 93.4 in 2024 (+34.4%). The highest observed value was 121.1 in 2021 and the lowest 39.9 in 2022. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Position in the state cohort
At 93.4 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Dunellen ranks 167 of 417 — above 250 of the 416 other New Jersey cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +37.1% 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.
Property counts dominate Dunellen'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 8 reported violent incidents in a population of 8,561. 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 | 71 | 829.3 |
| Larceny-Theft | 60 | 700.9 |
| Burglary | 6 | 70.1 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 5 | 58.4 |
| Arson | 1 | 11.7 |
| Violent Crime | 8 | 93.4 |
| Aggravated Assault | 6 | 70.1 |
| Robbery | 2 | 23.4 |
| Murder | 0 | 0 |
| Rape | 0 | 0 |
Lead series · fell across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
Secondary series · rose · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 7,192 | 69.5 | 1487.8 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 7,434 | 121.1 | 712.9 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 7,525 | 39.9 | 823.9 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 7,582 | 92.3 | 699 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 8,561 | 93.4 | 829.3 |
Dunellen's crime figures on this page originate from Dunellen 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 Dunellen in population. Their populations run from 8,394 to 8,732, against 8,561 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 Dunellen's 93.4/100K (same FBI UCR vintage rules; size peers above are excluded so the two lists stay distinct).
Small-city read: Dunellen 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 Dunellen's small city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Dunellen, 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. Dunellen is scored as a small-city UCR reporter (8,561 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.