From left, Angelo J. Onofri, first assistant prosecutor of the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office; Hamilton Township Police Chief, James W. Collins; and Hamilton Township Mayor Kelly Yaede, who also serves as Hamilton’s director of Public Safety. (Photo courtesy of Hamilton Township.)
A chart of Hamilton Township’s crime rate, from 2005-2014.
Mayor Kelly Yaede and Police Chief James W. Collins announced that Hamilton’s crime rate reached historic lows in 2014.
According to police data, the crime rate in 2014 was the lowest in 37 years of available data in the Hamilton Township Police Division’s electronic crime database dating back to 1977.
After a 5% decrease in 2013, Hamilton’s crime rate dropped over 12.5% in 2014. Both violent and non-violent crimes were down. Violent crimes reached the point of 20.3 crimes per 1,000 residents and non-violent crimes reached the lowest level on record.
During 2014, aggravated assaults dropped 29.63%, rape dropped 25%, larceny dropped 17.46%, robbery dropped 11.54% and burglary dropped 3.57% from the prior year. There were no homicides in Hamilton during the year.
Yaede and Collins credited the drop in crime to the work of police officers solving cases and making arrests, along with proactive crime prevention efforts and an increased emphasis on communication with residents through social media and the Police Division’s website. The Rutgers Center for Government Services gave the township a special recognition award in the area of website/social media in 2014.
