Essex Fells, NJ is among the safest cities in the country, and earns an A PlainCrime safety grade
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Essex Fells, NJ shows violent crime at 0 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 1,296.3 per 100,000. PlainCrime assigns grade A from those rates. Figures are voluntary agency submissions joined to population denominators; incomplete coverage can move the number.
A safety grade
0/100K violent
1296.3/100K property
What the 2024 FBI UCR record shows for Essex Fells, NJ
Small-count caution
The violent-crime count is small enough that the derived rate is unstable
Essex Fells reported 0 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 2,160. 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.
2020–2024 direction
The reported violent-crime rate ended the window lower
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 48.0 per 100,000 in 2020 to 0.0 in 2024 (-100.0%). The highest observed value was 93.3 in 2022 and the lowest 0.0 in 2023. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Position in the state cohort
Essex Fells reported a lower violent-crime rate than most comparable New Jersey cities
At 0.0 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Essex Fells ranks 379 of 417 — above 0 of the 416 other New Jersey cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is -100.0% against the cohort median of 68.5. Cities that did not report, or that reported implausibly low totals, are excluded from this cohort rather than counted as low-crime.
Comparable rate records
Essex Fells's closest reported-rate comparisons are in the New Jersey cohort
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Essex Fells's 0.0 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Allendale (0.0), Allenhurst (0.0), Bay Head (0.0), Belvidere (0.0). 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.
Property-offense composition
Burglary and vehicle theft carry more of the property total than they do across the cohort
Larceny-theft is 42.9% of reported property offenses in Essex Fells, against a cohort median of 82.1%. The remainder is burglary (13) and motor vehicle theft (3). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
Offense mix
The reported mix leans further toward property offenses than the state cohort
Violent offenses are 0.0% of the 28 Part I offenses reported in Essex Fells for 2024, against a median of 7.2% across comparable New Jersey cities — a gap of 7.2 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 counts dominate Essex Fells'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 0 reported violent incidents in a population of 2,160. 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.
On a small municipal row, small denominators make rates sensitive to a handful of incidents. Figures are reported totals, not neighbourhood advice.
Essex Fells's 2024 municipal footprint
Across 1.4 Census sq mi, Essex Fells logged 19.9 property and 0 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Essex Fells's 2024 book concentrates in burglary (46% of 28 offenses; mix index 4,107).
Violent offenses are only 0% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (1.4 sq mi); mix index is HHI x 10,000 on the offense-type shares above. Distinct from the per-100K rates in the hero.
Property rate moved most (2023→2024)
Property Crime Rate
-28.6%
1816.5 → 1296.3/100K
Property offenses lead Essex Fells's 2024 record
Offense
Count
Rate /100K
vs US avg
Property Crime
28
1296.3
1711
Burglary
13
601.9
-
Larceny-Theft
12
555.6
-
Motor Vehicle Theft
3
138.9
-
Arson
0
0
-
Violent Crime
0
0
352
Murder
0
0
-
Rape
0
0
-
Robbery
0
0
-
Aggravated Assault
0
0
-
Essex Fells Crime Trend (2020-2024)
Essex Fells property crime rate trend
Lead series · rose across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program · split lines are the U.S. national averagesRead the chart as a list
Essex Fells: 0 violent, 1296 property per 100,000 (grade A)
Sea Isle City: 141 violent, 3384 property per 100,000 (grade C)
Pine Beach: 133 violent, 88 property per 100,000 (grade A)
Ocean Gate: 292 violent, 486 property per 100,000 (grade B)
Gibbsboro: 219 violent, 1268 property per 100,000 (grade B)
Ogdensburg: 0 violent, 0 property per 100,000 (grade A+)
Englishtown: 86 violent, 727 property per 100,000 (grade A)
Alpha: 127 violent, 892 property per 100,000 (grade A)
Avon-by-the-Sea: 103 violent, 1499 property per 100,000 (grade A)
Essex Fells Police Department
Reporting agency for Essex Fells Summary Reporting (SRS)
Essex Fells Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Essex Fells's 28 reported offenses (5-year span 2020-2024).
This agency reports via the traditional Summary Reporting System (SRS): aggregate monthly offense counts rather than incident-level detail.
Similar-Size Cities in New Jersey
Crime rates read differently at different scales, so these are the New Jersey cities closest to Essex Fells in population. Their populations run from 1,935 to 2,355, against 2,160 here. Or use our
side-by-side compare tool
to benchmark two cities directly.
In 2024, Essex Fells reported 0 violent crimes and 28 property crimes, for a total of 28 reported offenses.
Is crime increasing or decreasing in Essex Fells?
From 2023 to 2024, Essex Fells's violent crime rate data is unavailable, and the property crime rate decreased by 28.6%.
What is the most common crime in Essex Fells?
The most common crime type in Essex Fells is burglary, accounting for 46.4% of all reported crimes (13 incidents in 2024).
Micro-municipal read: Essex Fells's FBI UCR Table 8 row (2024) is the only source for the rates above.
With a small population base, per-100,000 rates amplify sparse counts. Incomplete submissions are excluded from rankings. See FBI.gov UCR for the raw Table 8 file.
Disclaimer (small municipal): small-base rates are especially easy to misread. Informational only - not advice. Source: FBI UCR Program.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Essex Fells, NJ rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.