South River, NJ has a A+ safety grade (94/100) with a violent crime rate of 49 per 100,000, 86% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · mid-size city
South River (16,237 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
South River, NJ is safer than most U.S. cities, and earns an A+ PlainCrime safety grade, where violent crime runs 86% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, South River, NJ shows violent crime at 49.3 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 98.5 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 86% 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
South River reported 8 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 16,237. 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.
2020–2024 direction
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 184.3 per 100,000 in 2020 to 49.3 in 2024 (-73.3%). The highest observed value was 184.3 in 2020 and the lowest 49.3 in 2024. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Offense mix
Violent offenses are 33.3% of the 24 Part I offenses reported in South River for 2024, against a median of 7.1% across comparable New Jersey cities — a gap of 26.2 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.
Comparable rate records
The nearest comparable 2024 records to South River's 49.3 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Bogota (49.4), Little Egg Harbor Township (49.5), Princeton (48.6), Oceanport (48.6). 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 49.3 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, South River ranks 250 of 417 — above 167 of the 416 other New Jersey cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is -28.1% 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 South River'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 8 reported violent incidents in a population of 16,237. 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.
Across 2.8 Census sq mi, South River logged 5.7 property and 2.9 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
South River leans on larceny-theft at 54% of reported offenses, with a moderate mix index of 3,611.
Violent offenses are 33% of the municipal total; property offenses still dominate the count.
South River offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (2.8 sq mi); 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 | 16 | 98.5 |
| Larceny-Theft | 13 | 80.1 |
| Burglary | 2 | 12.3 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 1 | 6.2 |
| Arson | 0 | 0 |
| Violent Crime | 8 | 49.3 |
| Aggravated Assault | 5 | 30.8 |
| Robbery | 3 | 18.5 |
| Murder | 0 | 0 |
| Rape | 0 | 0 |
Lead series · fell across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
Secondary series · fell · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 15,731 | 184.3 | 546.7 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 16,240 | 73.9 | 277.1 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 15,877 | 63 | 642.4 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 16,009 | 93.7 | 443.5 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 16,237 | 49.3 | 98.5 |
South River Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind South River's 24 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 South River in population. Their populations run from 15,669 to 16,655, against 16,237 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
South River at 49.3/100K violent and 98.5/100K property - matched below outside New Jersey (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
49.3/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
98.5/100K here; violent-rate peers above excluded.
In 2024, South River reported 8 violent crimes and 16 property crimes, for a total of 24 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, South River's violent crime rate decreased by 47.4%, and the property crime rate decreased by 77.8%.
The most common crime type in South River is larceny-theft, accounting for 54.2% of all reported crimes (13 incidents in 2024).
Mid-size read: South River 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 River's mid-size city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 South River, NJ rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.
Bulk download: city crime dataset (CSV/JSON)
Put this to use
Put the South River, 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. South River is scored in the mid-size municipal band (16,237 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.