NEW JERSEY – Even as crime has declined in New Jersey, there are still a number of communities that continue to deal with high rates of murder, aggravated assault and other forms of violence.

Patch put together a list of communities that reported violent cime in the state, from highest to lowest, along with the communities that had the biggest to smallest increases in violent crime between 2017 and 2018 (see lists below). The numbers come from the FBI "Crime in the United States Report" released this week, using statistics from the most recent year available (2018).

The FBI defines the most serious forms of "violent crime" as murder, manslaughter, rape, robbery and aggravated assault. New FBI data shows crime decreased in the United States from 2017 to 2018 by 3.9 percent. The FBI Uniform Crime Report shows that violent crimes in New Jersey dropped 10 percent from 2017 to 2018, while the number of murders dropped 11 percent.

The report, though, is a snapshot of only one year, and thus not an accurate indicator of larger sustained trends. The nationwide drop in violent crime represents the second straight annual decrease after increases in 2015 and 2016. The FBI estimated there were 368.9 violent crimes for every 100,000 Americans last year.

Overall, robbery fell 12 percent from 2017, murder and nonnegligent manslaughter decreased by 6.2 percent, and aggravated assault dropped by a fraction of a percent.

Rape was the only violent crime to increase in 2018 from 2017. The FBI began to collect rape statistics under a revised definition in 2013, and the agency decided to stop the reporting of rape data using the old definition in 2017. But to remain consistent with past reports, the 2018 update includes figures based on the former definition.

The new definition expands the meaning of rape to include additional forms of penetration of a victim's body. Some 139,380 cases of rape were reported under the revised definition in 2018, up from 135,666 in 2017. By comparison, some 101,151 cases of rape were reported under the legacy definition, up from 99,708 in 2017.