South Amboy, NJ has a B safety grade (74/100) with a violent crime rate of 139 per 100,000, 60% below the national average.
South Amboy (10,781 people) sits in the mid-size municipal band. This page opens with per-100,000 FBI UCR rates, then NJ and national benchmarks.
South Amboy, NJ carries a PlainCrime B safety grade with violent crime 60% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, South Amboy, NJ shows violent crime at 139.1 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 1,391.3 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 60% below the U.S. average. PlainCrime assigns grade B from those rates. Figures are voluntary agency submissions joined to population denominators; incomplete coverage can move the number.
The verdict
South Amboy earns a B safety grade: violent crime runs 60% below the U.S. average, placing it close to the national middle for violent crime.
Based on 15 reported violent incidents in a population of 10,781. 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-count caution
South Amboy reported 15 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 10,781. 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 South Amboy's 139.1 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are West Orange (139.8), Sea Isle City (141.0), Brick Township (137.3), North Brunswick Township (137.2). 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.
Position in the state cohort
At 139.1 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, South Amboy ranks 117 of 417 — above 300 of the 416 other New Jersey cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +104.2% 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.
Property-offense composition
Larceny-theft is 64.7% of reported property offenses in South Amboy, against a cohort median of 82.1%. The remainder is burglary (25) and motor vehicle theft (28). 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 129.9 per 100,000 in 2020 to 139.1 in 2024 (+7.1%). The highest observed value was 171.4 in 2023 and the lowest 129.4 in 2022. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property counts dominate South Amboy'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 15 reported violent incidents in a population of 10,781. 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 | 150 | 1391.3 |
| Larceny-Theft | 97 | 899.7 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 28 | 259.7 |
| Burglary | 25 | 231.9 |
| Arson | 2 | 18.6 |
| Violent Crime | 15 | 139.1 |
| Aggravated Assault | 9 | 83.5 |
| Rape | 3 | 27.8 |
| Robbery | 2 | 18.6 |
| Murder | 1 | 9.3 |
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 | 9,235 | 129.9 | 790.5 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 9,536 | 136.3 | 755 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 9,277 | 129.4 | 1218.1 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 9,337 | 171.4 | 1167.4 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 10,781 | 139.1 | 1391.3 |
South Amboy's crime figures on this page originate from South Amboy 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 South Amboy in population. Their populations run from 10,412 to 11,028, against 10,781 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 South Amboy's 139.1/100K (same FBI UCR vintage rules; size peers above are excluded so the two lists stay distinct).
Mid-size read: South Amboy 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 South Amboy's mid-size city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 South Amboy, 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. South Amboy is scored in the mid-size municipal band (10,781 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.