How 'Safe' Is Chatham? Here's Where It Ranks In NJ: Report

CHATHAM, NJ — New Jersey has some of the nation's lowest crime rates, but residents express the sixth-highest level of concern about safety, according to SafeWise.

But a new report from SafeWise, which contextualizes crime and safety trends, ranks New Jersey cities and towns in terms of "safety." The list includes Chatham Township, which placed 22nd out of 244 municipalities in the rankings. (The list doesn't include Chatham Borough, which is slightly less populous than the township.)

For the purposes of the report, SafeWise's uses of "dangerous" and "safe" explicitly refer to crime rates from FBI data, SafeWise says. The rankings also factor in data points like median income, high school graduation rates, redlining practices, household access to high-speed internet, city budget allocations, and unemployment rates.

Additionally, keep in mind that the FBI has a longstanding policy against using its crime data to rank locales.

"Data users should not rank locales because there are many factors that cause the nature and type of crime to vary from place to place," the FBI says. "UCR (uniform crime reporting) statistics include only jurisdictional population figures along with reported crime, clearance, or arrest data. Rankings ignore the uniqueness of each locale."

But in SafeWise's report, Chatham Township places high on the list. According to the numbers, there were 2.3 property crimes and effectively zero violent crimes per 1,000 people in the township last year. (The national averages are 19.6 property crimes and four violent crimes per 1,000, according to SafeWise.)

New Jersey's violent-crime rate dropped 6 percent compared to last year, and the property-crime rate also dipped 13 percent. But New Jerseyans were 1.3 times more likely to worry about their safety on a daily basis than the previous year, according to SafeWise. Fifty-eight percent of survey participants in New Jersey reported concern on a daily basis that crime might happen to them, compared to 47 percent of Americans.

See the full SafeWise report here.

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