NJ Is 'Safest' State In Nation For Violent Crime, New Study Says

NEW JERSEY — Glance at the news headlines in New Jersey, and you’ll see a nonstop torrent of stories about murder, sex assault and robbery. But according to a recent report, the state is actually the “safest” in the nation when it comes to violent crime.

Earlier this month, Innerbody Research released the results of a study titled “How Do States Rank in Crimes Against Persons?” See the full report and learn about its methodology here.

Researchers analyzed data from the FBI’s Summary Reporting System and National Incident-Based Reporting System reports to rank the “most and least dangerous states in terms of crimes committed against people.” Crimes were weighted based on their severity, with homicides at the top of the list.

New Jersey was found to be the safest in the country overall, ranking above states such as Vermont, Connecticut and Rhode Island. The most dangerous state to live in? Nevada, researchers said.

Florida wasn’t included in the analysis because there was no crime data for the specified time period provided to the FBI, researchers said.

New Jersey had the least reported assaults of any state: about 43 per 10,000 people. The state also had the lowest number of sex offenses (2.52 per 10,000 people), human trafficking, kidnappings and abductions.

The study pointed to two big factors that seemed to help New Jersey score the top spot:

GUN CONTROL - “Besides California, New Jersey is stricter on gun control than any other state in the country, which more than likely contributes to it landing at the #1 spot on our list.”

POLICE REFORM - “New Jersey’s position at the top of our list could be partially due to the state’s ambitious police reform policy, a part of Attorney General Mathew Platkin’s ‘Excellence in Policing’ initiative. This initiative was developed to promote a culture of professionalism, accountability and transparency.”

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CRIME AND PUBLIC PERCEPTION

The study noted that in 2019, roughly 379 violent crimes per 100,000 people were reported in the U.S., according to data gathered by the FBI.

When it came to violent crimes, aggravated assault was the most common offense, followed by robbery, rape, and both murder and non-negligent manslaughter. There was a recent spike in the national murder rate from 2019 to 2020, which rose by nearly 30 percent – the most significant single-year increase ever recorded, researchers said.

But aside from the murder rate – which dropped in 2022 – violent crime has steadily been on the decline across the nation in several other categories.

“Regarding Americans’ perception of crime, at least 60 percent of U.S. adults believe that more crimes are being committed nationally compared to the previous year – but the data tells a different story,” researchers said, citing figures from the Pew Research Center.

Between 1993 and 2019, the rate of violent crime in the U.S. actually fell by 49 percent, with significant decreases in the rates of robbery (68% decrease), murder and non-negligent manslaughter (47% decrease), and aggravated assault (43 decrease), researchers said.

“Incomplete data and political posturing haven’t helped to assuage the general public’s misconceptions about the prevalence of crime in the U.S.,” researchers added.

• See Related: Blizzard Of 'Tough On Crime' Bills In NJ Is Bad News, Advocates Say
• See Related: NJ Needs To Invest In People – Not Lock Them Up, Advocates Say

A recent Gallup Poll reported that a “record-high” 56 percent of U.S. residents think that crime rates have gotten worse in their local area over the past year. Currently, 73 percent of Republicans say crime in their area has risen, while 51 percent of independents and 42 percent of Democrats say the same, pollsters said.

That includes New Jersey, where lawmakers have been launching a flurry of bills aimed at cracking down on crime, including car thefts. New Jersey officials reported 14,320 car thefts in 2021 — a 22 percent increase over the prior year. Read More: Democrat, GOP Lawmakers Say NJ Car Thefts Are An 'Epidemic'

State police have also said they are taking a close look at what they call New Jersey's “CorrStat Region,” a 19-mile stretch of Rt. 21 that connects Paterson and Newark. There are 80 northeast New Jersey towns in that CorrStat Region, including Newark. In 2021, the CorrStat Region accounted for 63 percent of the state's total motor vehicle thefts. And car theft in that region is up 31 percent so far in 2022, police said. Read More: Car Theft Punishments May Increase In NJ Under New Bills

However, the reporting of crime statistics is a notoriously subjective process, which is easily manipulated depending on how you define “crime,” the location and the period of time you’re analyzing, The Marshall Project recently noted:

“Nationally, what we know from both FBI data reported by police, and from an annual federal survey that asks about 240,000 people whether they personally were victims of crime, is that violent and property crimes have both been on a steady decline since the early 1990s. Murders did increase at a troubling and dramatic rate nationwide in 2020, and have remained elevated, but murder is the least common form of violent crime. Overall, violent crime has remained roughly static since 2010, following decades of decline.”

Other reports have claimed that the overall crime rate has fallen over recent years.

According to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, sexual violence has fallen by half in the last 20 years (the organization notes that there is still much work to be done, with someone in the U.S. being sexually assaulted every 68 seconds).

In 2020, FiveThirtyEight reported that Americans are “terrible” at estimating their risk of being victimized by crime:

“Crime rates do fluctuate from year to year. In 2020, for example, murder has been up but other crimes are in decline so that the crime rate, overall, is down. And the trend line for violent crime over the last 30 years has been down, not up. The Bureau of Justice Statistics found that the rate of violent crimes per 1,000 Americans age 12 and older plummeted from 80 in 1993 to just 23 in 2018. The country has gotten much, much safer, but, somehow, Americans don’t seem to feel that on a knee-jerk, emotional level.”

So what about New Jersey?

A criminal defense attorney’s office recently took a look at national FBI data, finding that New Jersey had the fifth-lowest rate of violent crime in the United States behind Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and Connecticut.

On average, across the nation, 398.5 violent crimes were committed per 100,000 people in 2020. In New Jersey, that rate was just 195.3 violent crimes per 100,000 people, the Law Office of Jorge Vela reported.

Some Garden State cities and towns have reported statistics in line with these findings.

In 2021, Newark’s former public safety director said that during the last three years, the city has seen the lowest number of murders in six decades. Violent crime ticked upward in New Jersey’s largest city and auto thefts were up 18 percent – due largely to “drivers leaving their vehicles running and unattended.” But property crimes were down in every other category, with drops in burglaries, thefts from auto and other thefts. Read More: Violent Crime Up In Newark For 2021, But Down Over 3-Year Period

Nearby in Essex County, West Orange officials announced last year that the crime rate has reached a 41-year low, crediting some of the gains to more “community policing” and a new program, where trained mental health clinicians are called upon to respond alongside officers on certain crisis calls, which may not be criminal in nature. Read More: West Orange Crime Rate Hits 41-Year Low, Police Say

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