It's a nice community to live in. I'm not saying we don't have our problems, but we control the problems. In 1982, the township's major crime rate stood at 13 crimes per 1,000 residents. Back then Plumsted, had 4,697 residents. The crime rate dropped to the single digits during the mid-1980s, then started to rise slowly but steadily again.
Major crimes are murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary and theft.
In 1996, the overall crime rate was 14.97 per 1,000 residents, making it the second safest town in the county. The vast majority of those crimes were nonviolent burglaries and thefts. There have been no murders here since at least 1981. There's definitely an increased police presence in the downtown area, where we've had problems in the past, especially with young people on the streets late at night. Her store, Harry G. Wright Hardware on Main Street, was burglarized last year.