These are the safest cities in New Jersey

Insurance website AdvisorSmith.com has combed through crime data to compile a list of the safest cities in New Jersey. They looked at the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report for 2019 for the raw data and then assigned weights to various crimes with the more severe (rape, murder, assault) getting higher weights. Burglary, larceny, and vehicle thefts were also included. They then took 484 cities and divided them according to population: large (over 50,000 residents), midsize (10,000-50,000), and small (less than 10,000).

Each city was then assigned a crime score with the lower the score the safer the city; the average was 30 with a low of 2 and a high of 1,559. They assigned a multiplier to more serious crimes in order to account for the severity of each crime. They multiplied the number of crimes by the crime multiplier in each city and added the product, which was adjusted for population in order to calculate a crime score for each city. Cities were ranked within their population cohorts based upon their crime scores. There were 37 large cities, 200 midsize, and 247 small ones.

So, what are the safest cities (at least according to AdvisorSmith)? First, the large cities:
1. Middletown
2. Parsippany
3. Jackson
4. Old Bridge
5. Howell

The safest midsize cities in New Jersey are:

1. Warren
2. River Vale
3. Chatham
4. New Providence
5. Bernards Township

And the safest small cities:
1. Matawan
2. Harrington Park
3. Kinnelon
4. Park Ridge
5. Fair Haven

For the full ranking of all the cities you can see the complete results here.

The post above reflects the thoughts and observations of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Bill Doyle. Any opinions expressed are Bill Doyle's own.