Wayne Township, NJ has a B safety grade (74/100) with a violent crime rate of 94 per 100,000, 73% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · large city
Wayne Township, NJ Crime Rate & Safety
At 53,295 residents, Wayne Township 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.
Wayne Township, NJ carries a PlainCrime B safety grade with violent crime 73% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Wayne Township, NJ shows violent crime at 93.8 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 1,861.3 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 73% 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.
B safety grade
93.8/100K violent
1861.3/100K property
-73% vs U.S.
What the 2024 FBI UCR record shows for Wayne Township, NJ
Comparable rate records
Wayne Township's closest reported-rate comparisons are in the New Jersey cohort
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Wayne Township's 93.8 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Dunellen (93.4), West Milford Township (93.0), Prospect Park (95.1), Clark Township (95.2). 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
Wayne Township sits mid-pack among comparable New Jersey cities
At 93.8 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Wayne Township ranks 166 of 417 — above 251 of the 416 other New Jersey cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +37.7% 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 dominates the property total more than it does across the cohort
Larceny-theft is 91.7% of reported property offenses in Wayne Township, against a cohort median of 82.0%. The remainder is burglary (51) and motor vehicle theft (31). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
2020–2024 direction
The reported violent-crime rate ended the window lower
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 101.6 per 100,000 in 2020 to 93.8 in 2024 (-7.6%). The highest observed value was 111.5 in 2022 and the lowest 68.8 in 2021. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property counts dominate Wayne 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.
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.
Wayne Township's 2024 municipal footprint
Wayne Township's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (87% of 1,042 offenses; mix index 7,677).
Violent offenses are only 5% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
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.
Property rate moved most (2023→2024)
Property Crime Rate
-13.4%
2148.4 → 1861.3/100K
Violent Crime Rate
-1.9%
95.6 → 93.8/100K
Property offenses lead Wayne Township's 2024 record
Offense
Count
Rate /100K
vs NJ
Property Crime
992
1861.3
1395.7
Larceny-Theft
910
1707.5
-
Burglary
51
95.7
-
Motor Vehicle Theft
31
58.2
-
Arson
3
5.6
-
Violent Crime
50
93.8
215.7
Aggravated Assault
43
80.7
-
Robbery
7
13.1
-
Murder
0
0
-
Rape
0
0
-
Wayne Township Crime Trend (2020-2024)
Wayne Township property crime rate trend
Lead series · rose across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program · split lines are the U.S. national averages
Wayne Township Police Department
Reporting agency for Wayne Township NIBRS-participating
Wayne Township Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Wayne Township's 1,042 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.
Similar-Size Cities in New Jersey
Crime rates read differently at different scales, so these are the New Jersey cities closest to Wayne Township in population. Their populations run from 49,652 to 57,259, against 53,295 here. Or use our
side-by-side compare tool
to benchmark two cities directly.
Wayne Township at 93.8/100K violent and 1,861.3/100K property - matched below outside New Jersey (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
In 2024, Wayne Township reported 50 violent crimes and 992 property crimes, for a total of 1,042 reported offenses.
Is crime increasing or decreasing in Wayne Township?
From 2023 to 2024, Wayne Township's violent crime rate decreased by 1.9%, and the property crime rate decreased by 13.4%.
What is the most common crime in Wayne Township?
The most common crime type in Wayne Township is larceny-theft, accounting for 87.3% of all reported crimes (910 incidents in 2024).
Large-city read: Wayne Township'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.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Wayne Township, NJ rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.