Independence Township, NJ has a A+ safety grade (94/100) with a violent crime rate of 54 per 100,000, 85% below the national average.
Independence Township is a small municipal reporter (5,539 on the UCR row). Per-100,000 violent and property rates are shown with NJ and U.S. context.
Independence Township, NJ carries a PlainCrime A+ safety grade with violent crime 85% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Independence Township, NJ shows violent crime at 54.2 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 72.2 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 85% 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
Independence Township earns an A+ safety grade: violent crime runs 85% below the U.S. average, placing it safer than most U.S. cities.
Based on 3 reported violent incidents in a population of 5,539. 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.
Offense mix
Violent offenses are 42.9% of the 7 Part I offenses reported in Independence Township for 2024, against a median of 7.1% across comparable New Jersey cities — a gap of 35.7 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.
Small-count caution
Independence Township reported 3 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 5,539. 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 Independence Township's 54.2 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are South Orange Village (54.0), Sea Girt (54.6), Englewood Cliffs (55.2), Wharton (53.1). 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 37.1 per 100,000 in 2020 to 54.2 in 2024 (+45.9%). The highest observed value was 54.2 in 2024 and the lowest 18.1 in 2023. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property-offense composition
Larceny-theft is 50.0% of reported property offenses in Independence Township, against a cohort median of 82.1%. The remainder is burglary (2) and motor vehicle theft (0). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
Position in the state cohort
At 54.2 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Independence Township ranks 240 of 417 — above 177 of the 416 other New Jersey cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is -20.9% 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.
Independence Township's FBI UCR Table 8 municipal row keeps violent and property totals in a closer balance. Per-100,000 rates use the reporting-year population on that row; incomplete reporters stay out of rate rankings. A citywide figure rarely describes any single neighbourhood inside the municipal boundary.
Based on 3 reported violent incidents in a population of 5,539. 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 | 4 | 72.2 |
| Burglary | 2 | 36.1 |
| Larceny-Theft | 2 | 36.1 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 0 | 0 |
| Arson | 0 | 0 |
| Violent Crime | 3 | 54.2 |
| Murder | 1 | 18.1 |
| Rape | 1 | 18.1 |
| Aggravated Assault | 1 | 18.1 |
| Robbery | 0 | 0 |
Secondary series · rose · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
Lead series · fell across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 5,386 | 37.1 | 167.1 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 5,391 | 18.5 | 111.3 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 5,510 | 36.3 | 127 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 5,533 | 18.1 | 108.4 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 5,539 | 54.2 | 72.2 |
Independence Township's crime figures on this page originate from Independence Township Police Department's submission to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting Program.
This agency reports via the traditional Summary Reporting System (SRS): aggregate monthly offense counts rather than incident-level detail.
Crime rates read differently at different scales, so these are the New Jersey cities closest to Independence Township in population. Their populations run from 5,434 to 5,792, against 5,539 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 Independence Township's 54.2/100K (same FBI UCR vintage rules; size peers above are excluded so the two lists stay distinct).
Small-city read: Independence Township 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 Independence Township's small city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Independence Township, 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. Independence Township is scored as a small-city UCR reporter (5,539 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.