Scotch Plains Township, NJ has a A+ safety grade (91/100) with a violent crime rate of 40 per 100,000, 89% below the national average.
Scotch Plains Township (24,820 people) sits in the mid-size municipal band. This page opens with per-100,000 FBI UCR rates, then NJ and national benchmarks.
Scotch Plains Township, NJ carries a PlainCrime A+ safety grade with violent crime 89% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Scotch Plains Township, NJ shows violent crime at 40.3 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 515.7 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 89% 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
Scotch Plains Township earns an A+ safety grade: violent crime runs 89% below the U.S. average, placing it among the safest cities in the country.
Based on 10 reported violent incidents in a population of 24,820. 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 20.6 per 100,000 in 2020 to 40.3 in 2024 (+95.9%). The highest observed value was 61.2 in 2022 and the lowest 20.6 in 2020. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Small-count caution
Scotch Plains Township reported 10 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 24,820. 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 Scotch Plains Township's 40.3 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Helmetta (40.3), Northvale (40.4), Oxford Township (40.5), Jackson Township (40.1). 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.
Property-offense composition
Larceny-theft is 64.1% of reported property offenses in Scotch Plains Township, against a cohort median of 82.1%. The remainder is burglary (24) and motor vehicle theft (22). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
Position in the state cohort
At 40.3 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Scotch Plains Township ranks 271 of 417 — above 146 of the 416 other New Jersey cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is -41.2% 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.
Property counts dominate Scotch Plains Township'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 10 reported violent incidents in a population of 24,820. 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 | 128 | 515.7 |
| Larceny-Theft | 82 | 330.4 |
| Burglary | 24 | 96.7 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 22 | 88.6 |
| Arson | 0 | 0 |
| Violent Crime | 10 | 40.3 |
| Aggravated Assault | 8 | 32.2 |
| Rape | 1 | 4 |
| Robbery | 1 | 4 |
| Murder | 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 | 24,313 | 20.6 | 674.5 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 25,204 | 23.8 | 785.6 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 24,490 | 61.2 | 812.6 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 24,406 | 32.8 | 770.3 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 24,820 | 40.3 | 515.7 |
Scotch Plains Township's crime figures on this page originate from Scotch Plains Township 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 Scotch Plains Township in population. Their populations run from 24,191 to 25,176, against 24,820 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 Scotch Plains Township's 40.3/100K (same FBI UCR vintage rules; size peers above are excluded so the two lists stay distinct).
Mid-size read: Scotch Plains Township 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 Scotch Plains Township's mid-size city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Scotch Plains 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. Scotch Plains Township is scored in the mid-size municipal band (24,820 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.