Hawthorne, NJ has a A+ safety grade (90/100) with a violent crime rate of 25 per 100,000, 93% below the national average.
Hawthorne (19,899 people) sits in the mid-size municipal band. This page opens with per-100,000 FBI UCR rates, then NJ and national benchmarks.
Hawthorne, NJ carries a PlainCrime A+ safety grade with violent crime 93% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Hawthorne, NJ shows violent crime at 25.1 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 869.4 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 93% 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
Hawthorne earns an A+ safety grade: violent crime runs 93% below the U.S. average, placing it among the safest cities in the country.
Based on 5 reported violent incidents in a population of 19,899. 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.
2020–2024 direction
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 5.3 per 100,000 in 2020 to 25.1 in 2024 (+370.6%). The highest observed value was 36.6 in 2023 and the lowest 5.3 in 2020. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Small-count caution
Hawthorne reported 5 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 19,899. 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 Hawthorne's 25.1 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Mansfield Township, Warren County (25.3), Morris Township (24.8), Cranbury Township (24.6), Fairfield Township, Essex County (24.5). 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.
Position in the state cohort
At 25.1 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Hawthorne ranks 314 of 417 — above 103 of the 416 other New Jersey cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is -63.3% 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.
Offense mix
Violent offenses are 2.8% of the 178 Part I offenses reported in Hawthorne for 2024, against a median of 7.2% across comparable New Jersey cities — a gap of 4.4 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 Hawthorne'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 5 reported violent incidents in a population of 19,899. 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.
Mid-size municipal totals above are reported offenses, not safety advice for any single block. Reporting completeness still varies by year and agency.
| Offense | Count | Rate /100K |
|---|---|---|
| Property Crime | 173 | 869.4 |
| Larceny-Theft | 150 | 753.8 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 15 | 75.4 |
| Burglary | 8 | 40.2 |
| Arson | 0 | 0 |
| Violent Crime | 5 | 25.1 |
| Aggravated Assault | 5 | 25.1 |
| Murder | 0 | 0 |
| Rape | 0 | 0 |
| Robbery | 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 | 18,728 | 5.3 | 870.4 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 19,442 | 36 | 586.4 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 19,163 | 20.9 | 814.1 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 19,130 | 36.6 | 977.5 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 19,899 | 25.1 | 869.4 |
Hawthorne's crime figures on this page originate from Hawthorne 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 Hawthorne in population. Their populations run from 19,211 to 20,619, against 19,899 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 Hawthorne's 25.1/100K (same FBI UCR vintage rules; size peers above are excluded so the two lists stay distinct).
Mid-size read: Hawthorne figures are FBI UCR CIUS Table 8 (vintage 2024), population-adjusted per 100,000.
Denominators are the reporting-year population on the municipal row. Incomplete years are dropped from rankings. Confirm at FBI Crime Data Explorer and Census.gov QuickFacts.
Disclaimer (mid-size municipal): figures are informational, not advice. FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program is the source. Consult a professional before decisions.
Mid-size rate methodology for how Hawthorne's mid-size city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Hawthorne, 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. Hawthorne is scored in the mid-size municipal band (19,899 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.