Last year, Newton saw huge increases in the number home burglaries and hate crimes reported.

Mayor Ruthanne Fuller gave a rundown of criminal statistics from 2024 in her Friday email to the community, and you can see all the data here.

First, total arrests in 2024 stayed in line with 2023. Total violent crimes decreased by about 15 percent (from 62 in 2023 to 53 in 2024), but total property crimes jumped from 496 to 566—a nearly 15 percent increase.

And while mental health calls and domestic violence calls remained similar to 2023, residential burglaries and certain crimes saw more incidents reported.

Home burglaries more than doubled, from 18 in 2023 to 39 in 2024.

“Entry points are usually at the back of the house through unlocked doors, cut screens or broken windows,” Fuller wrote. “Jewelry, valuables and cash appear to be primary targets.”

It’s not just about homes, either. Vehicle break-ins went up by 62 percent from 2023 to 2024, car thefts went up 26 percent, and total larcenies went up by 11 percent.

“For clarification, burglaries are incidents where there is a physical break into a building while larcenies include thefts of packages at a doorstep, shoplifting, and car breaks,” Fuller continued. “Violent crimes are offenses that involve force or the threat of force. Property crimes include vandalism and malicious destruction of property.”

Police Lt. Amanda Henrickson noted the rise in burglaries in the fall and said police are actively working to remind people to lock their doors, in both their vehicles and their homes, especially overnight.

“Hopefully, while people are sitting on their couches scrolling on their phones,” Henrickson said, “they will see a graphic from the Newton police that says: ‘it is 9 o’clock. Did you lock your car doors? Did you remove your valuables from your car and lock the doors? Did you leave a ladder that you used cleaning leaves from your gutter near a window?’”

Hate crimes

Last year, Newton saw 74 hate incidents, a 37 percent rise from 2023. And of those, seven amounted to hate crimes (up from just one hate crime reported in 2023).

“A hate incident occurs when someone threatens, attacks, intimidates, harasses, or otherwise harms another person because of that person’s identity, including their race, national origin, religion, disability, sexual orientation, gender, or gender identity,” Fuller explained. “A hate incident may or may not be a hate crime.”

Of the 74 hate-related incidents reported in Newton last year:

• 59 were antisemitic,
• three were anti-Asian,
• two were anti-Black,
• two were anti-Muslim/Islamic
• two were Anti-Sikh
• two were anti-transgender,
• one was anti-Arab,
• one was anti-gay,
• one was anti-Hindu,
• and one was anti-immigration.

That means about 80 percent of all hate-related incidents in Newton last year were deemed antisemitic.

Police noted the increase in hate crimes early in the year, with antisemitism being by far the biggest motivator. The war in Israel and military operations in Gaza that followed the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks against Israeli civilians served as a focal point of many property crimes, and many of the hate crimes last year involved damage to properties displaying signs in support of Israel.

Antisemitic hate incidents became so frequent that residents of Homer Street held a massive rally against antisemitism in the spring and candidates from both of Newton’s state representative seat races attended a forum on combatting antisemitism this summer.

Then, in September, the local battle over Israel and Palestinians escalated with a shooting.