By AUBRIE GEORGE
The state attorney general’s office has released the 2009 Uniform Crime Report, showing that Marlton has seen an overall decrease in crime.
The state’s report, prepared by the state police uniform crime reporting unit, measures offenses committed Jan. 1 through Dec. 31, 2009. The report contains data on crimes that fall into seven categories, including four violent crimes of murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault, and three nonviolent crimes of burglary, larceny and motor vehicle theft.
According to the report, Marlton showed a decrease in total crime incidents from 689 to 654. Violent crime incidents held steady at 38 incidents for both years. There were zero murders, eight rape cases, 15 robberies and 15 counts of aggravated assaults reported in 2009 compared to one murder, 10 rape cases, nine robberies and 18 aggravated assaults reported in 2008.
Non-violent crimes in Evesham, however, dropped from 651 to 616 with 80 burglaries, 521 counts of larceny, and 15 motor vehicle thefts committed in 2009 compared to 101 burglaries, 533 counts of larceny and 17 motor vehicle thefts committed in 2008.
While Evesham Police Chief Michael Barth said, ideally, he’d like to see the number of crime-related incidents lower, he was pleased to see a downward movement. Especially, he said, with a difficult economy presenting challenges such as an increase risk of property thefts.
He expressed pride that the township has one of the lowest crime rates per 1,000 residents for 4 municipalities comparable to Evesham’s size in Burlington County.
The township’s crime rate per 1,000 residents dropped from 15.1 to 14.4 with the violent crime rate per 1,000 steady at 0.8 and the non-violent crime rate per 1,000 dropping from 14.3 to 13.6.
Barth attributed the drop in numbers to the overall visibility of the Evesham Police Department.
“We try to make our people very visible, and I think that has a correlation with a feeling of omnipresence. The more visible you can be, I think that has a lot of positive influence on lowering the crime rate,” he said. “I would assume that a criminal would prefer to operate in a town where the police aren’t around.”
According to the report, the overall crime rate in New Jersey dropped 9 percent compared to 2008. Notably, there was a 15 percent drop in the number of murders reported statewide in 2009, marking the lowest reported murder rate in a decade.
Total violent crime decreased across the state by 4 percent and non-violent crime decreased 9 percent.
A copy of the 2009 uniform crime report can be found through the New Jersey State Police Web site at www.njsp.org.
