Wildwood, NJ has a D safety grade (31/100) with a violent crime rate of 391 per 100,000, 11% above the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · small city
Wildwood is a small municipal reporter (5,118 on the UCR row). Per-100,000 violent and property rates are shown with NJ and U.S. context.
Data updated 2026-08-24
Wildwood, NJ carries a PlainCrime D safety grade with violent crime 11% above the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Wildwood, NJ shows violent crime at 390.8 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 4,884.7 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 11% above the U.S. average. PlainCrime assigns grade D from those rates. Figures are voluntary agency submissions joined to population denominators; incomplete coverage can move the number.
Small-count caution
Wildwood reported 20 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 5,118. 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.
Position in the state cohort
At 390.8 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Wildwood ranks 26 of 417 — above 391 of the 416 other New Jersey cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +473.4% 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.
Comparable rate records
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Wildwood's 390.8 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Perth Amboy (391.8), Lindenwold (401.2), Pleasantville (402.5), Burlington City (375.3). 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.
2020–2024 direction
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 713.1 per 100,000 in 2020 to 390.8 in 2024 (-45.2%). The highest observed value was 1077.4 in 2022 and the lowest 174.3 in 2023. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property counts dominate Wildwood'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 20 reported violent incidents in a population of 5,118. 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 1.5 Census sq mi, Wildwood logged 162.2 property and 13 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Wildwood's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (80% of 270 offenses; mix index 6,572).
Violent offenses are only 7% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Wildwood offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (1.5 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 | 250 | 4884.7 |
| Larceny-Theft | 217 | 4239.9 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 22 | 429.9 |
| Burglary | 11 | 214.9 |
| Arson | 2 | 39.1 |
| Violent Crime | 20 | 390.8 |
| Aggravated Assault | 14 | 273.5 |
| Rape | 3 | 58.6 |
| Robbery | 3 | 58.6 |
| Murder | 0 | 0 |
The chart omits 2023 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 | 4,908 | 713.1 | 6723.7 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 4,877 | 1066.2 | 8263.3 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 5,105 | 1077.4 | 6640.5 |
| 2023 | Insufficient reporting | 5,164 | - | - |
| 2024 | Comparable | 5,118 | 390.8 | 4884.7 |
Wildwood Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Wildwood's 270 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 Wildwood in population. Their populations run from 4,903 to 5,193, against 5,118 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Wildwood sits at 390.8/100K violent (grade D); the New Jersey cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
In 2024, Wildwood reported 20 violent crimes and 250 property crimes, for a total of 270 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Wildwood's violent crime rate increased by 124.2%, and the property crime rate increased by 157.4%.
The most common crime type in Wildwood is larceny-theft, accounting for 80.4% of all reported crimes (217 incidents in 2024).
Small-city read: Wildwood 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 Wildwood's small city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Wildwood, 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. Wildwood is scored as a small-city UCR reporter (5,118 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.