Norristown Violent Crime: Increasing Or Decreasing?

Could crime in Norristown be turning a corner?

Although violent crime in the borough remains higher than most of its neighbors, rates are dropping in every category across the board.

That’s according to the FBI’s annual ”Crime in the United States” report for 2014, released on Monday.

Compared to 2013, Norristown’s crime rates dropped in almost every category in 2014.

The total number of violent crimes was down from 324 to 257. Violent crime includes offenses involving force of the threat of force: murder and non-negligent manslaughter, rape, robbery and aggravated assault, according to the FBI.

Rates had also dropped from 2012, which saw 317 violent crimes in the borough.

There were 3 murders in 2013, and 2 in 2014, while there were 15 incidents of rape in 2013 compared to five in 2014.

Robbery dropped from 185 offenses to 143, while total number of property crimes was down from 1068 to 882.

In every other category the FBI measured - burglary, motor vehicle theft, larceny, arson - there was a measurable decrease in 2014.

In that respect, Norristown is in line with the rest of the country, where the FBI reports violent crime decreased as a whole. Nationally, violent crime decreased by 0.2 percent from 2013, according to the report.

It’s also in line with several of Norristown’s immediate neighbors, which either saw a drop or only a slight increase in violent crime in 2014:

• Conshohocken: 14 in 2013, 10 in 2014
• West Conshohocken: 43 in 2013, 25 in 2014
• East Norriton: 22 in 2013, 28 in 2014
• West Norriton: 2 in 2013, 2 in 2014

The FBI warns media outlets and other organizations against using the statistics for ranking purposes, claiming that there are too many factors involved - such as population flux and urbanization rate - to accurately compare cities based on the numbers.

Without ranking municipalities across categories, Norristown’s rate of violent crimes per capita remains the highest in Montgomery County by a fair margin. But the statistics released Monday reflect a positive trend for the borough to continue to build upon heading into 2015.

Editor’s note: This is the first in a series of articles on crime stats from the FBI report.