New Brunswick, NJ has a F safety grade (8/100) with a violent crime rate of 699 per 100,000, 98% above the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · large city
New Brunswick, NJ Crime Rate & Safety
At 57,259 residents, New Brunswick is a large city: FBI UCR Table 8 rates (per 100,000) here are read against NJ and U.S. averages before the offense-family breakdown.
New Brunswick, NJ is among the highest-crime cities in the country, and earns an F PlainCrime safety grade, where violent crime runs 98% above the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, New Brunswick, NJ shows violent crime at 698.6 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 2,626.7 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 98% above the U.S. average. PlainCrime assigns grade F from those rates. Figures are voluntary agency submissions joined to population denominators; incomplete coverage can move the number.
F safety grade
698.6/100K violent
2626.7/100K property
+98% vs U.S.
What the 2024 FBI UCR record shows for New Brunswick, NJ
Position in the state cohort
New Brunswick reported a higher violent-crime rate than most comparable New Jersey cities
At 698.6 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, New Brunswick ranks 8 of 417 — above 409 of the 416 other New Jersey cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +925.1% 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.
Comparable rate records
New Brunswick's closest reported-rate comparisons are in the New Jersey cohort
The nearest comparable 2024 records to New Brunswick's 698.6 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Paulsboro (715.5), Passaic (719.2), Hi-Nella (632.2), Newark (581.2). 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.
Offense mix
Violent offenses make up an unusually large share of the reported mix
Violent offenses are 21.0% of the 1,904 Part I offenses reported in New Brunswick for 2024, against a median of 7.1% across comparable New Jersey cities — a gap of 13.9 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.
2020–2024 direction
The reported violent-crime rate ended the window higher
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 511.7 per 100,000 in 2020 to 698.6 in 2024 (+36.5%). The highest observed value was 947.6 in 2023 and the lowest 511.7 in 2020. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property counts dominate New Brunswick'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.
On a large city row, these are citywide reported offense totals - not neighbourhood advice. Conditions vary by place and time; reporting rates differ across jurisdictions.
New Brunswick's 2024 municipal footprint
Across 5.2 Census sq mi, New Brunswick logged 287.4 property and 76.4 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
New Brunswick's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (65% of 1,904 offenses; mix index 4,515).
Violent offenses are 21% of the municipal total; property offenses still dominate the count.
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (5.2 sq mi); mix index is HHI x 10,000 on the offense-type shares above. Distinct from the per-100K rates in the hero.
Violent rate moved most (2023→2024)
Violent Crime Rate
-26.3%
947.6 → 698.6/100K
Property Crime Rate
-12%
2984.3 → 2626.7/100K
Property offenses lead New Brunswick's 2024 record
Offense
Count
Rate /100K
vs NJ
Property Crime
1,504
2626.7
1395.7
Larceny-Theft
1,237
2160.4
-
Burglary
168
293.4
-
Motor Vehicle Theft
99
172.9
-
Arson
6
10.5
-
Violent Crime
400
698.6
215.7
Aggravated Assault
206
359.8
-
Robbery
159
277.7
-
Rape
26
45.4
-
Murder
9
15.7
-
New Brunswick Crime Trend (2020-2024)
New Brunswick 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 averages
New Brunswick Police Department
Reporting agency for New Brunswick NIBRS-participating
New Brunswick Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind New Brunswick's 1,904 reported offenses (5-year span 2020-2024).
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.
Similar-Size Cities in New Jersey
Crime rates read differently at different scales, so these are the New Jersey cities closest to New Brunswick in population. Their populations run from 53,988 to 60,848, against 57,259 here. Or use our
side-by-side compare tool
to benchmark two cities directly.
New Brunswick at 698.6/100K violent and 2,626.7/100K property - matched below outside New Jersey (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
In 2024, New Brunswick reported 400 violent crimes and 1,504 property crimes, for a total of 1,904 reported offenses.
Is crime increasing or decreasing in New Brunswick?
From 2023 to 2024, New Brunswick's violent crime rate decreased by 26.3%, and the property crime rate decreased by 12%.
What is the most common crime in New Brunswick?
The most common crime type in New Brunswick is larceny-theft, accounting for 65.0% of all reported crimes (1,237 incidents in 2024).
Large-city read: New Brunswick's rates come from the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, CIUS Table 8, vintage 2024.
Incomplete reporters stay out of rate rankings. Cross-check population with Census ACS; state UCR programs for statewide context. Primary verify links: FBI.gov UCR, Census QuickFacts.
Disclaimer (large city): informational crime rates only - not legal, insurance, or personal-safety advice. Source: FBI UCR. Ask a qualified professional before acting.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 New Brunswick, NJ rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.