The Uniform Crime Report shows that crime is up slightly

Crime is up about 1 percent throughout the entire state, according to the Uniform Crime Reports published by the state last week.

The annual report is based on crime statistics submitted to the New Jersey Uniform Crime Reporting System by every New Jersey law enforcement agency for the year 2010, according to Paula T. Dow, the attorney general of New Jersey. Effective law enforcement requires accurate crime statistics in order to identify the extent, type, and location of criminal activity, she said in the report. Criminal Justice administrators and planners have long recognized the Uniform Crime Reporting Program as the vehicle to accomplish this objective.

Violent crime and nonviolent crime incidents are both up in the state, with nonviolent incidents increasing by about 3,000 incidents over 2009 to 183,643 in 2010. Violent crime increased by about 68 incidents, up to 27,174 incidents in 2010.

In Burlington County, the overall crime index went down in 2010 when compared with 2009. Incidents in 2010 dropped to 8,390 from 8,553 in 2009. The crime rate per every 1,000 residents in Burlington County dropped from 19.2 incidents in 2009 to 18.7 in 2010.

Overall incidents in Evesham Township increased by about 99 from 2009 to 2010. There were 753 incidents in 2010 to 654 in 2009, according to the reports.

Lt. Walt Miller of the Evesham Township Police Department said the uniform crime reports aren’t as useful to the police department as say the monthly crime reports are for policing.

“We do intelligence led policing in our department, so our monthly reports are much more useful,” Miller said. “The UCR only captures a certain component of time. Also, the only burglaries that the UCR tracks are residential burglaries, not automotive burglaries. We would be missing a huge portion of the burglaries that happen here if we only looked at the UCR.”

Violent crime incidents rose from 38 to 41 in 2010, according to the crime reports. Nonviolent crime rose 616 in 2009 to 712 incidents in 2010. Incidents of rape actually decreased from eight in 2009 to only three in 2010.

Robbery and aggravated assault both rose from 15 incidents each in 2009 to 19 incidents in 2010.

The UCR is a good tool to measure your municipality against others in the state and to see how you rank in the county, but for day-to-day applications it doesn’t mean much, Miller said.

“Policing is a hard thing to score. The UCR is trying to put a score on an abstract figure here and it’s a difficult thing to do,” Miller said.

To view the entire state uniform crime report, visit the state’s website at www.nj.gov.