Wharton, NJ has a A safety grade (88/100) with a violent crime rate of 53 per 100,000, 85% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · small city
Wharton is a small municipal reporter (7,539 on the UCR row). Per-100,000 violent and property rates are shown with NJ and U.S. context.
Data updated 2026-08-24
Wharton, NJ carries a PlainCrime A safety grade with violent crime 85% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Wharton, NJ shows violent crime at 53.1 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 782.6 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 85% 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
Wharton reported 4 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 7,539. 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 126.1 per 100,000 in 2020 to 53.1 in 2024 (-57.9%). The highest observed value was 126.1 in 2020 and the lowest 27.5 in 2023. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Comparable rate records
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Wharton's 53.1 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Westwood (52.4), South Orange Village (54.0), Parsippany-Troy Hills Township (52.1), Independence Township (54.2). 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.
Property-offense composition
Larceny-theft is 96.6% of reported property offenses in Wharton, against a cohort median of 82.0%. The remainder is burglary (2) and motor vehicle theft (0). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
Position in the state cohort
At 53.1 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Wharton ranks 242 of 417 — above 175 of the 416 other New Jersey cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is -22.5% 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 Wharton'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 4 reported violent incidents in a population of 7,539. 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-city offense counts above are voluntary UCR submissions, not neighbourhood advice. Year-to-year swings can look large when the population base is modest.
Across 2.1 Census sq mi, Wharton logged 28.4 property and 1.9 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Wharton's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (90% of 63 offenses; mix index 8,224).
Violent offenses are only 6% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Wharton offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (2.1 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 | 59 | 782.6 |
| Larceny-Theft | 57 | 756.1 |
| Burglary | 2 | 26.5 |
| Arson | 1 | 13.3 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 0 | 0 |
| Violent Crime | 4 | 53.1 |
| Aggravated Assault | 3 | 39.8 |
| Robbery | 1 | 13.3 |
| Murder | 0 | 0 |
| Rape | 0 | 0 |
The chart omits 2021 rather than drawing an unsupported zero or partial-coverage dip. The table preserves the year and marks the gap.
Lead series · fell across 4 comparable years · FBI UCR
Secondary series · fell · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 6,343 | 126.1 | 1103.6 |
| 2021 | Insufficient reporting | 6,728 | - | - |
| 2022 | Comparable | 7,225 | 124.6 | 968.9 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 7,267 | 27.5 | 1307.3 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 7,539 | 53.1 | 782.6 |
Wharton Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Wharton's 63 reported offenses (4-year span 2020-2024, with internal gaps).
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 Wharton in population. Their populations run from 7,353 to 7,717, against 7,539 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Wharton sits at 53.1/100K violent (grade A); the New Jersey cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
In 2024, Wharton reported 4 violent crimes and 59 property crimes, for a total of 63 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Wharton's violent crime rate increased by 93.1%, and the property crime rate decreased by 40.1%.
The most common crime type in Wharton is larceny-theft, accounting for 90.5% of all reported crimes (57 incidents in 2024).
Small-city read: Wharton is sourced from FBI UCR Table 8 for 2024; rates use that row's population.
Small-city rows use the same per-100,000 formula; a few unreported years can leave gaps in the trend table. Verify the agency's submission on FBI.gov UCR.
Disclaimer (small city): UCR counts here are informational only. They are not a victimization probability. Source: FBI UCR Program.
Small-city rate methodology for how Wharton's small city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Wharton, 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. Wharton is scored as a small-city UCR reporter (7,539 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.