Essex, MA has a B safety grade (68/100) with a violent crime rate of 292 per 100,000, 17% below the national average.
Essex is a small municipal reporter (3,770 on the UCR row). Per-100,000 violent and property rates are shown with MA and U.S. context.
Essex, MA carries a PlainCrime B safety grade with violent crime 17% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Essex, MA shows violent crime at 291.8 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 344.8 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 17% below the U.S. average. PlainCrime assigns grade B from those rates. Figures are voluntary agency submissions joined to population denominators; incomplete coverage can move the number.
The verdict
Essex earns a B safety grade: violent crime runs 17% below the U.S. average, placing it higher-crime than most U.S. cities.
Based on 11 reported violent incidents in a population of 3,770. 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.
2020–2024 direction
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 104.9 per 100,000 in 2020 to 291.8 in 2024 (+178.1%). The highest observed value was 291.8 in 2024 and the lowest 51.4 in 2021. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Small-count caution
Essex reported 11 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 3,770. 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.
Offense mix
Violent offenses are 45.8% of the 24 Part I offenses reported in Essex for 2024, against a median of 21.4% across comparable Massachusetts cities — a gap of 24.5 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 Essex's 291.8 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Malden (292.2), Wareham (292.3), Whitman (293.6), Canton (289.9). 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.
Position in the state cohort
At 291.8 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Essex ranks 57 of 317 — above 260 of the 316 other Massachusetts cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +102.9% against the cohort median of 143.8. Cities that did not report, or that reported implausibly low totals, are excluded from this cohort rather than counted as low-crime.
Essex's FBI UCR Table 8 municipal row keeps violent and property totals in a closer balance. Per-100,000 rates use the reporting-year population on that row; incomplete reporters stay out of rate rankings. A citywide figure rarely describes any single neighbourhood inside the municipal boundary.
Based on 11 reported violent incidents in a population of 3,770. 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.
Small-city offense counts above are voluntary UCR submissions, not neighbourhood advice. Year-to-year swings can look large when the population base is modest.
| Offense | Count | Rate /100K |
|---|---|---|
| Property Crime | 13 | 344.8 |
| Larceny-Theft | 10 | 265.3 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 2 | 53.1 |
| Burglary | 1 | 26.5 |
| Arson | 0 | 0 |
| Violent Crime | 11 | 291.8 |
| Aggravated Assault | 10 | 265.3 |
| Rape | 1 | 26.5 |
| Murder | 0 | 0 |
| Robbery | 0 | 0 |
Secondary series · rose · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
Lead series · rose across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 3,812 | 104.9 | 288.6 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 3,888 | 51.4 | 231.5 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 3,678 | 108.8 | 380.6 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 3,678 | 163.1 | 244.7 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 3,770 | 291.8 | 344.8 |
Essex's crime figures on this page originate from Essex Police Department's submission to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting Program.
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 Essex in population. Their populations run from 3,544 to 3,924, against 3,770 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
These Massachusetts cities report the closest violent-crime rates to Essex's 291.8/100K (same FBI UCR vintage rules; size peers above are excluded so the two lists stay distinct).
Small-city read: Essex is sourced from FBI UCR Table 8 for 2024; rates use that row's population.
Small-city rows use the same per-100,000 formula; a few unreported years can leave gaps in the trend table. Verify the agency's submission on FBI.gov UCR.
Disclaimer (small city): UCR counts here are informational only. They are not a victimization probability. Source: FBI UCR Program.
Small-city rate methodology for how Essex's small city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Essex, MA rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.
Bulk download: city crime dataset (CSV/JSON)
Every figure on PlainCrime is rendered directly from FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) source data, no number is typed in by an editor. Essex is scored as a small-city UCR reporter (3,770 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.