By Marisa Cannici —
Exclusive prismatic street art.
History in liaison with Liberty State Park.
Elegantly structured architecture surrounding the waterfront.
Welcome to Jersey City.
Jersey City may be the second largest city in New Jersey, it may be home to one of the nation’s largest downtowns but it is also part of the ever growing street crime in Hudson County. Since January 1st 2011 Jersey City has accumulated over 5,000 crimes alone including arrests, assaults, burglaries, robberies, shootings, theft and vandalism. The numbers may seem high but Jersey City has had the largest decrease in crime in Hudson County over the past 30 years.
“I think we are on the right course when you have significant crime decreases in most of the violent crime categories and double-digit drops in all of the non-violent crime categories despite the troubling economy where many theorists believe it only adds to more crime,” said Police Chief, Tom Comey in a city hall press release.
Comey shows pride that his plan of decreasing crime is working. While surrounding towns like Paterson and Newark have risen, Comey and his Jersey City police force came up with a plan in 2005 to analyze crime trends in order to decrease the large numbers. In following through with their plan, violent crimes in Jersey City fell from 2,314 to 1,827 and nonviolent crimes from 7,598 to 6,093. Today, the Jersey City crime rate continues to drastically drop.
“We’ve been able to analyze crime trends more effectively since the implementation of Comstat whereby the timely vetting of crime statistics citywide has made us more effective in targeting certain crimes and problem areas over the years,” said Comey.
Hoboken and East Newark are the only Hudson County municipalities that saw slight bumps in reported crim. Overall, Hudson County crime decreased by 13.8 percent, falling from 18,994 incidents in 2008 to 16,368 in 2009.
Although Hudson County is linked with crime, Jersey City has the most decreased crime rates of the twelve municipalities in Hudson County. Aside from its familiar relation to crime, Hudson County is linked with entertainment, tourism and commerce amongst much more. Not to mention the unique culture Jersey City has to offer.
