Bedford, MA has a A+ safety grade (95/100) with a violent crime rate of 14 per 100,000, 96% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · mid-size city
Bedford (14,659 people) sits in the mid-size municipal band. This page opens with per-100,000 FBI UCR rates, then MA and national benchmarks.
Data updated 2026-09-05
Bedford, MA is among the safest cities in the country, and earns an A+ PlainCrime safety grade, where violent crime runs 96% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Bedford, MA shows violent crime at 13.6 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 443.4 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 96% below the U.S. average. PlainCrime assigns grade A+ from those rates. Figures are voluntary agency submissions joined to population denominators; incomplete coverage can move the number.
Small-count caution
Bedford reported 2 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 14,659. At this volume one additional or one fewer report moves the per-100,000 rate noticeably, so the figure is better read as a data point than as a precise measurement, and year-to-year swings here are expected.
2020–2024 direction
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 77.8 per 100,000 in 2020 to 13.6 in 2024 (-82.5%). The highest observed value was 77.8 in 2020 and the lowest 13.6 in 2024. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Position in the state cohort
At 13.6 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Bedford ranks 297 of 317 — above 20 of the 316 other Massachusetts cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is -90.6% against the cohort median of 145.1. Cities that did not report, or that reported implausibly low totals, are excluded from this cohort rather than counted as low-crime.
Offense mix
Violent offenses are 3.0% of the 67 Part I offenses reported in Bedford for 2024, against a median of 21.5% across comparable Massachusetts cities — a gap of 18.5 points. Offense mix is shaped by which agencies report and how incidents are classified as well as by the underlying offenses, so it describes the reported record rather than a settled difference in conditions.
Comparable rate records
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Bedford's 13.6 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Merrimac (14.6), Northborough (12.5), Millis (10.7), Winchester (17.2). These are same-year agency submissions that pass the same completeness screen, not a claim that the cities have identical conditions. They make the cohort position above checkable against named records instead of a generic state average.
Property counts dominate Bedford's FBI UCR Table 8 municipal row. Per-100,000 rates use the reporting-year population on that row; cities that fail the completeness test stay out of rate rankings. A citywide figure rarely describes any single neighbourhood inside the municipal boundary.
Based on 2 reported violent incidents in a population of 14,659. At this volume, one additional or one fewer report can shift the rate and letter grade noticeably; small-city crime counts are inherently more volatile year to year than large-city counts, so treat this grade as a data point, not a precise ranking.
Mid-size municipal totals above are reported offenses, not safety advice for any single block. Reporting completeness still varies by year and agency.
Across 13.7 Census sq mi, Bedford logged 4.8 property and 0.1 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Bedford's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (82% of 67 offenses; mix index 6,863).
Violent offenses are only 3% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Bedford offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (13.7 sq mi); mix index is HHI x 10,000 on the offense-type shares above. Distinct from the per-100K rates in the hero.
| Offense | Count | Rate /100K |
|---|---|---|
| Property Crime | 65 | 443.4 |
| Larceny-Theft | 55 | 375.2 |
| Burglary | 6 | 40.9 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 4 | 27.3 |
| Arson | 0 | 0 |
| Violent Crime | 2 | 13.6 |
| Murder | 2 | 13.6 |
| Rape | 0 | 0 |
| Robbery | 0 | 0 |
| Aggravated Assault | 0 | 0 |
Lead series · fell across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
Secondary series · fell · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 14,135 | 77.8 | 445.7 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 14,241 | 28.1 | 428.3 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 14,034 | 14.3 | 513 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 14,117 | 56.7 | 488.8 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 14,659 | 13.6 | 443.4 |
Bedford Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Bedford's 67 reported offenses (5-year span 2020-2024).
This agency reports via NIBRS, the incident-based system that captures more detail per offense (multiple crimes per incident, victim/offender data) than the older summary counts.
Crime rates read differently at different scales, so these are the Massachusetts cities closest to Bedford in population. Their populations run from 14,215 to 15,008, against 14,659 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Bedford sits at 13.6/100K violent (grade A+); the Massachusetts cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
Bedford at 13.6/100K violent and 443.4/100K property - matched below outside Massachusetts (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
13.6/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
443.4/100K here; violent-rate peers above excluded.
In 2024, Bedford reported 2 violent crimes and 65 property crimes, for a total of 67 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Bedford's violent crime rate decreased by 76%, and the property crime rate decreased by 9.3%.
The most common crime type in Bedford is larceny-theft, accounting for 82.1% of all reported crimes (55 incidents in 2024).
Mid-size read: Bedford figures are FBI UCR CIUS Table 8 (vintage 2024), population-adjusted per 100,000.
Denominators are the reporting-year population on the municipal row. Incomplete years are dropped from rankings. Confirm at FBI Crime Data Explorer and Census.gov QuickFacts.
Disclaimer (mid-size municipal): figures are informational, not advice. FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program is the source. Consult a professional before decisions.
Mid-size rate methodology for how Bedford's mid-size city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Bedford, MA rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.
Bulk download: city crime dataset (CSV/JSON)
Put this to use
Put the Bedford, MA FBI UCR record to work: compare peers, open the state atlas, or look up another city.
A citywide UCR rate is a starting point, not a neighbourhood verdict: read the full profile and the year coverage notes before drawing conclusions.
Every figure on PlainCrime is rendered directly from FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) source data, no number is typed in by an editor. Bedford is scored in the mid-size municipal band (14,659 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.