Trenton, NJ has a F safety grade (10/100) with a violent crime rate of 1026 per 100,000, 191% above the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · large city
At 91,236 residents, Trenton is a 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 2026-09-05
Trenton, NJ is among the highest-crime cities in the country, and earns an F PlainCrime safety grade, where violent crime runs 191% above the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Trenton, NJ shows violent crime at 1,025.9 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 2,288.6 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 191% above the U.S. average. PlainCrime assigns grade F from those rates. Figures are voluntary agency submissions joined to population denominators; incomplete coverage can move the number.
Position in the state cohort
At 1025.9 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Trenton ranks 3 of 417 — above 414 of the 416 other New Jersey cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +1405.5% 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.
Offense mix
Violent offenses are 31.0% of the 3,024 Part I offenses reported in Trenton for 2024, against a median of 7.1% across comparable New Jersey cities — a gap of 23.8 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.
Comparable rate records
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Trenton's 1025.9 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Paterson (978.6), Bridgeton (919.9), Passaic (719.2), Paulsboro (715.5). 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.
Property-offense composition
Larceny-theft is 63.3% of reported property offenses in Trenton, against a cohort median of 82.1%. The remainder is burglary (317) and motor vehicle theft (449). 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 1170.0 per 100,000 in 2020 to 1025.9 in 2024 (-12.3%). The highest observed value was 1170.0 in 2020 and the lowest 1025.9 in 2024. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property counts dominate Trenton'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 large city row, these are citywide reported offense totals - not neighbourhood advice. Conditions vary by place and time; reporting rates differ across jurisdictions.
Across 7.6 Census sq mi, Trenton logged 274.5 property and 123.1 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Trenton leans on larceny-theft at 44% of reported offenses, with a moderate mix index of 2,673.
Violent offenses are 31% of the municipal total; property offenses still dominate the count.
Trenton offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (7.6 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 | 2,088 | 2288.6 |
| Larceny-Theft | 1,322 | 1449 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 449 | 492.1 |
| Burglary | 317 | 347.5 |
| Arson | 18 | 19.7 |
| Violent Crime | 936 | 1025.9 |
| Aggravated Assault | 529 | 579.8 |
| Robbery | 334 | 366.1 |
| Rape | 53 | 58.1 |
| Murder | 20 | 21.9 |
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 | 82,909 | 1170 | 2116.8 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 86,246 | 1042.4 | 1985 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 90,313 | 1060.8 | 1883.4 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 89,509 | 1040.1 | 1874.7 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 91,236 | 1025.9 | 2288.6 |
Trenton Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Trenton's 3,024 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 Trenton in population. Their populations run from 71,138 to 109,086, against 91,236 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Trenton sits at 1,025.9/100K violent (grade F); the New Jersey cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
Trenton at 1,025.9/100K violent and 2,288.6/100K property - matched below outside New Jersey (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
1,025.9/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
2,288.6/100K here; violent-rate peers above excluded.
Out-of-state cities whose violent rate moved a similar share from 2023→2024 (-1.4% here); level-based peers above are excluded.
In 2024, Trenton reported 936 violent crimes and 2,088 property crimes, for a total of 3,024 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Trenton's violent crime rate decreased by 1.4%, and the property crime rate increased by 22.1%.
The most common crime type in Trenton is larceny-theft, accounting for 43.7% of all reported crimes (1,322 incidents in 2024).
Large-city read: Trenton'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 (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 Trenton's large city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Trenton, NJ rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.
Bulk download: city crime dataset (CSV/JSON)
Put this to use
Put the Trenton, 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. Trenton is scored here as a large city UCR reporter (91,236 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.