Palisades Park, NJ has a A+ safety grade (92/100) with a violent crime rate of 24 per 100,000, 93% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · mid-size city
Palisades Park (20,477 people) sits in the mid-size municipal band. This page opens with per-100,000 FBI UCR rates, then NJ and national benchmarks.
Data updated 2026-09-05
Palisades Park, NJ is among the safest cities in the country, and earns an A+ PlainCrime safety grade, where violent crime runs 93% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Palisades Park, NJ shows violent crime at 24.4 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 688.6 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.
Small-count caution
Palisades Park reported 5 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 20,477. 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 Palisades Park's 24.4 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Glen Ridge (24.4), Hasbrouck Heights (24.4), Readington Township (24.5), 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 24.4 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Palisades Park ranks 320 of 417 — above 97 of the 416 other New Jersey cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is -64.4% 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.
2020–2024 direction
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 33.6 per 100,000 in 2020 to 24.4 in 2024 (-27.4%). The highest observed value was 70.0 in 2022 and the lowest 24.4 in 2024. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property-offense composition
Larceny-theft is 70.2% of reported property offenses in Palisades Park, against a cohort median of 82.1%. The remainder is burglary (29) and motor vehicle theft (13). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
Offense mix
Violent offenses are 3.4% of the 146 Part I offenses reported in Palisades Park for 2024, against a median of 7.2% across comparable New Jersey cities — a gap of 3.8 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 counts dominate Palisades Park'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 20,477. 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.
Palisades Park's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (68% of 146 offenses; mix index 5,076).
Violent offenses are only 3% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Palisades Park 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 | 141 | 688.6 |
| Larceny-Theft | 99 | 483.5 |
| Burglary | 29 | 141.6 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 13 | 63.5 |
| Arson | 0 | 0 |
| Violent Crime | 5 | 24.4 |
| Robbery | 2 | 9.8 |
| Aggravated Assault | 2 | 9.8 |
| Rape | 1 | 4.9 |
| Murder | 0 | 0 |
Lead series · rose across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
Secondary series · fell · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 20,818 | 33.6 | 504.4 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 21,969 | 50.1 | 332.3 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 19,991 | 70 | 730.3 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 20,092 | 64.7 | 766.5 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 20,477 | 24.4 | 688.6 |
Palisades Park Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Palisades Park's 146 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.
Crime rates read differently at different scales, so these are the New Jersey cities closest to Palisades Park in population. Their populations run from 19,899 to 21,121, against 20,477 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Palisades Park sits at 24.4/100K violent (grade A+); the New Jersey cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
Palisades Park at 24.4/100K violent and 688.6/100K property - matched below outside New Jersey (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
24.4/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
688.6/100K here; violent-rate peers above excluded.
In 2024, Palisades Park reported 5 violent crimes and 141 property crimes, for a total of 146 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Palisades Park's violent crime rate decreased by 62.3%, and the property crime rate decreased by 10.2%.
The most common crime type in Palisades Park is larceny-theft, accounting for 67.8% of all reported crimes (99 incidents in 2024).
Mid-size read: Palisades Park 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 Palisades Park's mid-size city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Palisades Park, NJ rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.
Bulk download: city crime dataset (CSV/JSON)
Put this to use
Put the Palisades Park, NJ FBI UCR record to work: compare peers, open the state atlas, or look up another city.
A citywide UCR rate is a starting point, not a neighbourhood verdict: read the full profile and the year coverage notes before drawing conclusions.
Every figure on PlainCrime is rendered directly from FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) source data, no number is typed in by an editor. Palisades Park is scored in the mid-size municipal band (20,477 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.