Check your town's 2016 violent crime rate with our lookup tool - NJ.com

When New Jersey stands out among the pack, it's not always for the best of reasons. But when it comes to crime, things are looking up.

Violent crime in the state decreased for the fifth-straight year in 2016, a stark contrast with the rest of the country, which saw violence increase yet again in large part due to a spike in killings in some major cities, according to the FBI's annual crime report released last week.

The murder rate in New Jersey -- calculated as the number of murders per 100,000 residents -- ticked up by 2 percent compared to 2015 but was in line with the recent past. In total, 372 murders were reported to law enforcement last year -- up from 363 in 2015.

Nationwide, the murder rate rose 8 percent, the data shows.

There were 21,914 violent crimes reported in the state in 2016. Those included murder and non-negligent manslaughter, rape, robbery and aggravated assault, according to the FBI. Overall, the violent crime rate decreased 4 percent from 2015.

Similarly, the number of property crimes in New Jersey fell about 5 percent, from 145,701 in 2015 to 138,152 in 2016. Those included burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft and arson -- essentially, crimes involving no force or threat of force against someone else.

The property crime rate for the year was 1,545 per 100,000 residents.

So how does your town stack up?

Use the dropdown menu below to select your county and town, and then select another to compare crime statistics.

A note about the data: Only crime reported to local law enforcement gets reported to the FBI, so towns where crime is more likely to be reported may have higher crime rates than those where crime goes unreported. Crime rates in towns with very small populations may appear high. Surging seasonal populations in shore towns can result in higher property crime rates there. Not all towns have their own police departments, and thus they are not included in the lookup tool. Not all towns report their data to the bureau every year.

See more about how the FBI defines each crime.

A note about Camden: In 2013, a county police force took over policing the city of Camden. As a result, the city was not specified in the local law enforcement data, but the Camden County Police Department numbers from the dataset found here were manually added.

Carla Astudillo may be reached at castudillo@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @carla_astudi. Find her on Facebook.

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