Lancaster, MA has a A safety grade (80/100) with a violent crime rate of 143 per 100,000, 59% below the national average.
Lancaster is a small municipal reporter (9,104 on the UCR row). Per-100,000 violent and property rates are shown with MA and U.S. context.
Lancaster, MA carries a PlainCrime A safety grade with violent crime 59% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Lancaster, MA shows violent crime at 142.8 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 626.1 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 59% 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.
The verdict
Lancaster earns an A safety grade: violent crime runs 59% below the U.S. average, placing it close to the national middle for violent crime.
Based on 13 reported violent incidents in a population of 9,104. 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-count caution
Lancaster reported 13 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 9,104. 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.
Comparable rate records
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Lancaster's 142.8 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Dudley (141.0), Marshfield (144.8), West Bridgewater (140.7), Marblehead (145.3). 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-offense composition
Larceny-theft is 54.4% of reported property offenses in Lancaster, against a cohort median of 78.1%. The remainder is burglary (19) and motor vehicle theft (7). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
2020–2024 direction
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 174.1 per 100,000 in 2020 to 142.8 in 2024 (-18.0%). The highest observed value was 174.1 in 2020 and the lowest 59.5 in 2023. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Position in the state cohort
At 142.8 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Lancaster ranks 160 of 317 — above 157 of the 316 other Massachusetts cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is -1.6% 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.
Property counts dominate Lancaster'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 13 reported violent incidents in a population of 9,104. 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 | 57 | 626.1 |
| Larceny-Theft | 31 | 340.5 |
| Burglary | 19 | 208.7 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 7 | 76.9 |
| Arson | 0 | 0 |
| Violent Crime | 13 | 142.8 |
| Aggravated Assault | 12 | 131.8 |
| Rape | 1 | 11 |
| Murder | 0 | 0 |
| Robbery | 0 | 0 |
Lead series · rose across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
Secondary series · fell · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 8,040 | 174.1 | 385.6 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 7,900 | 164.6 | 367.1 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 8,504 | 129.4 | 435.1 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 8,409 | 59.5 | 642.2 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 9,104 | 142.8 | 626.1 |
Lancaster's crime figures on this page originate from Lancaster 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 Lancaster in population. Their populations run from 8,729 to 9,500, against 9,104 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
These Massachusetts cities report the closest violent-crime rates to Lancaster's 142.8/100K (same FBI UCR vintage rules; size peers above are excluded so the two lists stay distinct).
Small-city read: Lancaster 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 Lancaster's small city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Lancaster, 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. Lancaster is scored as a small-city UCR reporter (9,104 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.