As recently as 1992, the city's police force counted 71 full-time officers for a city with nearly 28,000 residents. Upon taking office in 1994, Public Safety Director Louis Napoletano said a main goal of his would be to bring the force back to an all-time high staffing level of 80. Today, Long Branch has a 102-member force, and crime has taken a downturn. Statewide, however, that isn't an uncommon occurrence. The major crime rate has fallen in New Jersey over the past decade, even as the number of arrests made in those incidents has climbed.
Major crimes are murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary and theft.
In this seaside city, the decreasing numbers are credited directly to an increase in the number of police on the street. About 78 percent of the force is assigned to street patrols, and many focus on special areas, such as the downtown Urban Enterprise Zone, Napoletano said. That isn't to say that big-city crimes like murder, armed robbery and rape don't happen here, they just don't happen as often as one might think. Like any community, you go through periods where you're growing and where you're not growing. There were 242 in 1996.