State Police Updating Local Crime Data Weekly

Updated crime statistics for towns and counties in New Jersey will be made available more frequently than in the past, according to State Police.

Police will be updating an online database of crime stats weekly, or as often as local departments report their new information. In the past, statewide statistics on crime were updated only once per year in the annual Uniform Crime Report. Data for 2011 was released in December.

“For the first time, we are able to give the public a sense of the current crime picture in their area. Even as preliminary data, this will be a great new tool for the public,” Superintendent of the New Jersey State Police Colonel Rick Fuentes said in a statement.

The new data is available online here. It is currently available as a PDF file and police said they hope to develop an interactive page that will allow users to search for different kinds of data.

The new data will be published as they receive it, according to police. Readers should note that a total of zero crime means that the local department did not yet report any information. Numbers in the new database are not verified and may change before the Uniform Crime Report is published.