FBI data released this week shows that even though the murder rate in New Jersey is slightly up, overall crime rates continue to nosedive.
According to the new 2015 data, there were 363 murders in New Jersey - up from 349 the previous year. The slight bump increased the rate to 4.1 murders per 100,000 residents.
The same statistics showed that murder rose nationwide last year at the fastest pace since 1990.
However, the murder rate in New Jersey is still slightly below what it has been for the last five years. In 2013, the murder rate in the state reached a peak of 4.5 per 100,000 residents before it fell to 3.9 per 100,000 the following year.
The good news is that both the overall violent and non-violent property crime rates in New Jersey are continuing their downward trajectory.
The data shows that there were 22,879 violent crimes in 2015 - down two percent from the previous year. The rate fell from 261.2 violent crimes per 100,000 residents to 255.4 in 2015.
Violent crimes include murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, rape, robbery and aggravated assault.
Non-violent property crimes in 2015, which include burglary, larceny-theft, and motor vehicle theft, are down in New Jersey a significant six percent from 2014.
The rate in New Jersey - 1626.5 property crimes per 100,000 inhabitants in 2015 - has been in freefall since 2011 when it was 2151.
Besides murder, only three other crime categories were up in 2015: rape, aggravated assault and motor vehicle theft.
In particular, reports of rape were up 6 percent from the previous year.
In 2013, the FBI started reporting new revised rape statistics that expanded what had been the standard definition of rape.
The report also included crime statistics for individual law enforcement agencies. We created a searchable database so that you can look up your town or municipality and find out if violent crime has gone up or down in 2015.
Not all law enforcement agencies reported 2015 data to the FBI report. For example, two big omissions are the Newark and Camden police department.
In April 2017, the New Jersey State Police is set to release its 2015 statistics which will include all statistics from all law enforcement agencies in the state.
Also, be careful when ranking towns to each other. There are many reasons why towns similar-sized towns can have different crime rates. For examples, if the citizens are more likely to report crimes to law enforcement, the rates may be higher, but it's not necessarily because there is more crime.
In addition, shore towns have a huge boost in population during the summer weekends compared its actual populations. This can manifest in a higher crime rate.