Newark, NJ has a D safety grade (25/100) with a violent crime rate of 581 per 100,000, 65% above the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · very large city
At 309,708 residents, Newark is a very large city: FBI UCR Table 8 rates (per 100,000) here are read against NJ and U.S. averages before the offense-family breakdown.
Data updated 2026-08-24
Newark, NJ carries a PlainCrime D safety grade with violent crime 65% above the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Newark, NJ shows violent crime at 581.2 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 1,957.3 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 65% above the U.S. average. PlainCrime assigns grade D from those rates. Figures are voluntary agency submissions joined to population denominators; incomplete coverage can move the number.
Position in the state cohort
At 581.2 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Newark ranks 10 of 417 — above 407 of the 416 other New Jersey cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +752.9% 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
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Newark's 581.2 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are South Hackensack Township (579.3), Penns Grove (574.7), Jersey City (561.6), Seaside Heights (546.0). 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.
Offense mix
Violent offenses are 22.9% of the 7,862 Part I offenses reported in Newark for 2024, against a median of 7.1% across comparable New Jersey cities — a gap of 15.8 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-offense composition
Larceny-theft is 47.6% of reported property offenses in Newark, against a cohort median of 82.1%. The remainder is burglary (472) and motor vehicle theft (2,706). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
2020–2024 direction
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 528.6 per 100,000 in 2020 to 581.2 in 2024 (+9.9%). The highest observed value was 581.2 in 2024 and the lowest 489.1 in 2021. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property counts dominate Newark'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 very large city row, these are citywide reported offense totals - not neighbourhood advice. Conditions vary by place and time; reporting rates differ across jurisdictions.
Newark leans on larceny-theft at 37% of reported offenses, with a moderate mix index of 2,831.
Violent offenses are 23% of the municipal total; property offenses still dominate the count.
Newark offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (when validated); mix index is HHI x 10,000 on the offense-type shares above. Distinct from the per-100K rates in the hero.
| Offense | Count | Rate /100K |
|---|---|---|
| Property Crime | 6,062 | 1957.3 |
| Larceny-Theft | 2,884 | 931.2 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 2,706 | 873.7 |
| Burglary | 472 | 152.4 |
| Arson | 12 | 3.9 |
| Violent Crime | 1,800 | 581.2 |
| Aggravated Assault | 1,193 | 385.2 |
| Robbery | 442 | 142.7 |
| Rape | 126 | 40.7 |
| Murder | 39 | 12.6 |
Lead series · rose across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
Secondary series · rose · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 282,242 | 528.6 | 1628.4 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 295,039 | 489.1 | 1422.2 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 304,311 | 520.5 | 1830 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 303,827 | 490.1 | 2233.5 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 309,708 | 581.2 | 1957.3 |
Newark Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Newark's 7,862 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.
Crime rates read differently at different scales, so these are the New Jersey cities closest to Newark in population. Their populations run from 91,236 to 297,922, against 309,708 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Newark sits at 581.2/100K violent (grade D); the New Jersey cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
Newark at 581.2/100K violent and 1,957.3/100K property - matched below outside New Jersey (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
581.2/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
1,957.3/100K here; violent-rate peers above excluded.
Out-of-state cities whose violent rate moved a similar share from 2023→2024 (+18.6% here); level-based peers above are excluded.
In 2024, Newark reported 1,800 violent crimes and 6,062 property crimes, for a total of 7,862 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Newark's violent crime rate increased by 18.6%, and the property crime rate decreased by 12.4%.
The most common crime type in Newark is larceny-theft, accounting for 36.7% of all reported crimes (2,884 incidents in 2024).
Large-city read: Newark'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 (very large city): informational crime rates only - not legal, insurance, or personal-safety advice. Source: FBI UCR. Ask a qualified professional before acting.
Large-city rate methodology for how Newark's very large city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Newark, 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. Newark is scored here as a very large city UCR reporter (309,708 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.