Brookline, MA has a A safety grade (82/100) with a violent crime rate of 100 per 100,000, 72% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · large city
Brookline, MA Crime Rate & Safety
At 64,122 residents, Brookline is a large city: FBI UCR Table 8 rates (per 100,000) here are read against MA and U.S. averages before the offense-family breakdown.
Brookline, MA is safer than most U.S. cities, and earns an A PlainCrime safety grade, where violent crime runs 72% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Brookline, MA shows violent crime at 99.8 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 895.2 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 72% 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.
A safety grade
99.8/100K violent
895.2/100K property
-72% vs U.S.
What the 2024 FBI UCR record shows for Brookline, MA
Comparable rate records
Brookline's closest reported-rate comparisons are in the Massachusetts cohort
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Brookline's 99.8 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Melrose (100.7), Carver (100.8), Wenham (98.9), New Braintree (98.8). 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.
Offense mix
The reported mix leans further toward property offenses than the state cohort
Violent offenses are 10.0% of the 638 Part I offenses reported in Brookline for 2024, against a median of 21.5% across comparable Massachusetts cities — a gap of 11.5 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.
Position in the state cohort
Brookline sits mid-pack among comparable Massachusetts cities
At 99.8 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Brookline ranks 209 of 317 — above 108 of the 316 other Massachusetts cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is -31.2% 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.
Property-offense composition
Larceny-theft dominates the property total more than it does across the cohort
Larceny-theft is 87.6% of reported property offenses in Brookline, against a cohort median of 78.1%. The remainder is burglary (55) and motor vehicle theft (16). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
2020–2024 direction
The reported violent-crime rate ended the window lower
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 107.1 per 100,000 in 2020 to 99.8 in 2024 (-6.8%). The highest observed value was 108.6 in 2022 and the lowest 65.5 in 2021. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property counts dominate Brookline'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.
On a large city row, these are citywide reported offense totals - not neighbourhood advice. Conditions vary by place and time; reporting rates differ across jurisdictions.
Brookline's 2024 municipal footprint
Across 6.8 Census sq mi, Brookline logged 84.9 property and 9.5 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Brookline's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (79% of 638 offenses; mix index 6,363).
Violent offenses are only 10% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (6.8 sq mi); mix index is HHI x 10,000 on the offense-type shares above. Distinct from the per-100K rates in the hero.
Violent rate moved most (2023→2024)
Violent Crime Rate
+48.5%
67.2 → 99.8/100K
Property Crime Rate
+4.6%
856.2 → 895.2/100K
Property offenses lead Brookline's 2024 record
Offense
Count
Rate /100K
vs US avg
Property Crime
574
895.2
1711
Larceny-Theft
503
784.4
-
Burglary
55
85.8
-
Motor Vehicle Theft
16
25
-
Arson
1
1.6
-
Violent Crime
64
99.8
352
Aggravated Assault
51
79.5
-
Robbery
10
15.6
-
Rape
3
4.7
-
Murder
0
0
-
Brookline Crime Trend (2020-2024)
Brookline property crime rate trend
Lead series · fell across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program · split lines are the U.S. national averages
Brookline Police Department
Reporting agency for Brookline NIBRS-participating
Brookline Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Brookline's 638 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.
Similar-Size Cities in Massachusetts
Crime rates read differently at different scales, so these are the Massachusetts cities closest to Brookline in population. Their populations run from 57,779 to 68,602, against 64,122 here. Or use our
side-by-side compare tool
to benchmark two cities directly.
In 2024, Brookline reported 64 violent crimes and 574 property crimes, for a total of 638 reported offenses.
Is crime increasing or decreasing in Brookline?
From 2023 to 2024, Brookline's violent crime rate increased by 48.5%, and the property crime rate increased by 4.6%.
What is the most common crime in Brookline?
The most common crime type in Brookline is larceny-theft, accounting for 78.8% of all reported crimes (503 incidents in 2024).
Large-city read: Brookline's rates come from the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, CIUS Table 8, vintage 2024.
Incomplete reporters stay out of rate rankings. Cross-check population with Census ACS; state UCR programs for statewide context. Primary verify links: FBI.gov UCR, Census QuickFacts.
Disclaimer (large city): informational crime rates only - not legal, insurance, or personal-safety advice. Source: FBI UCR. Ask a qualified professional before acting.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Brookline, MA rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.