11. Crime and Safety

The key points

• Violent crime is rare: 7 to 10 offenses a year in a borough of 26,698 residents.^97, 98
• About nine in ten property offenses are larceny-theft, the category that includes shoplifting. Paramus has the malls, and an offense at a store or in a parking deck counts as a Paramus offense.
• A single Paramus "crime rate" misleads. It divides offenses at the malls and on the highways by the number of residents only.
• For a home, read two columns: burglary and motor vehicle theft.

Paramus by type of crime

Table 11.1. Offenses reported by the Paramus Police Department, 2022 through 2025.

Source: FBI Crime Data Explorer.⁹⁷ These are offenses reported to police, not convictions.

Burglary and motor vehicle theft are the two categories that happen at houses and driveways, and even they include stores, dealership lots and mall parking areas. Larceny-theft also covers theft from vehicles, and the FBI figures do not say how much of it happened at stores and how much at homes.

Paramus and nearby towns

Table 11.2. Offenses reported to the FBI, Paramus and nearby towns, 2025.

Source: FBI Crime Data Explorer.^{97, 99, 100}

Violent counts are small in every town. Paramus's burglary and motor vehicle theft counts are the highest in the table, and they include its commercial sites. The larceny column is not a like-for-like comparison, because no other town in the table has Paramus's retail.

What this means for you
When a website shows one crime rate for Paramus next to a neighboring town's, look past it to the categories. No public source reports crime by street or neighborhood. For a specific address, ask the Paramus Police Records Bureau what it can release.

Police, fire and ambulance

• Police: 102 sworn officers and 22 civilian employees in 2025, based at 1 Carlough Drive.^101, 102 Police are about one fifth of the Borough's 2026 budget.¹⁰³
• Fire: a volunteer department with five companies and more than 130 members, answering about 1,300 calls a year.¹⁰⁴
• Ambulance: Paramus Emergency Medical Services is a Borough department; paramedics from local hospitals provide advanced life support.¹⁰⁵

What this means for you
Before you close, give your insurer the address and ask what fire protection class it applies. That class sets the fire portion of your premium.

What I tell my buyers: do not compare one Paramus crime rate with one rate for the town next door. The Paramus count covers the malls and the highways, and it is divided only by the people who live here. Look at the burglary and motor vehicle theft columns, and if a specific street matters to you, ask the Paramus Police Records Bureau what it can release for that address.