Violent Crime Rate In Belleville, Nutley Has Dropped Over Past Decades

BELLEVILLE-NUTLEY, NJ — The violent crime rates in Belleville and Nutley have seen major drops over the past four decades, new federal data shows.

The FBI released its latest Uniform Crime Reporting program results last week, including statistics for Belleville and Nutley. In addition to data for 2022, the program now includes “trend reports” that analyze data going back nearly 40 years.

The agency cautions that the data isn’t an exhaustive report of all crime that takes place in a city or town, and police departments may have “differing levels of participation” over the years. The FBI also says that the data isn’t an effective way of comparing one municipality to another (some factors to consider include population size, economic conditions, employment rates, local judicial and prison policies, and the “effective strength” of the local police force).

The FBI data breaks down crimes by age, gender, race and ethnicity, as well as other factors such as location, the relationship of the suspect and the victim, and the type of weapon involved. Look up data for an individual town or city here.

VIOLENT CRIME IN BELLEVILLE, NUTLEY

According to the FBI, the list of “violent crimes” includes homicide, rape, robbery and aggravated assault.

There were 66 violent crimes reported by the Belleville Police Department in 2022 – an increase from the levels seen during the pandemic (28 crimes in 2021, and 41 crimes in 2020).

However, Belleville's violent crime rate has dropped steadily over the past four decades, with a high of 214 crimes reported in 1991.

Meanwhile, there were 21 violent crimes reported by the Nutley Police Department in 2022 – similar to pre-pandemic levels (21 crimes in 2020, and 28 crimes in 2019).

Nutley's violent crime rate has also shrunk over the past three decades, with a high of 85 crimes reported in 1991. The township isn't too far away from its 2014-level, when Nutley saw a low of 15 violent crimes.

VIOLENT CRIME IN NEW JERSEY

Some of the trends seen in Belleville and Nutley have also been seen on the state level.

In New Jersey, 543 of 578 law enforcement agencies submitted data for the latest round of the UCR program. Read More: Latest Violent, Property Crime Data For NJ Released By FBI

The state’s violent crime rate was 202.9 per 100,000 people last year: up from 183.5 in 2021. However, New Jersey remains well below the national violent crime rate of 380.7 per 100,000 people (which decreased 1.7 percent from 2021).

Despite the uptick in 2022, New Jersey has been seeing historically low rates of violent crime over the past decade, the FBI data shows.

Earlier this year, a new study ranked New Jersey as the “safest” in the nation for violent crime, citing data from the FBI’s Summary Reporting System and National Incident-Based Reporting System.

The study pointed to two big factors that seemed to help New Jersey score the top spot: gun control and police reform. Read More: NJ Is 'Safest' State In Nation For Violent Crime, New Study Says

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