Palmer, MA has a C safety grade (58/100) with a violent crime rate of 375 per 100,000, 7% above the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · mid-size city
Palmer (12,534 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
Palmer, MA is higher-crime than most U.S. cities, and earns a C PlainCrime safety grade, where violent crime runs 7% above the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Palmer, MA shows violent crime at 375 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 574.4 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 7% above the U.S. average. PlainCrime assigns grade C from those rates. Figures are voluntary agency submissions joined to population denominators; incomplete coverage can move the number.
Position in the state cohort
At 375.0 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Palmer ranks 35 of 317 — above 282 of the 316 other Massachusetts cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +160.7% 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.
Comparable rate records
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Palmer's 375.0 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Provincetown (368.9), Southbridge (366.5), Oak Bluffs (364.8), Edgartown (387.5). 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
Violent offenses are 39.5% of the 119 Part I offenses reported in Palmer for 2024, against a median of 21.4% across comparable Massachusetts cities — a gap of 18.1 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.
Property-offense composition
Larceny-theft is 65.3% of reported property offenses in Palmer, against a cohort median of 78.1%. The remainder is burglary (15) and motor vehicle theft (10). 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 368.9 per 100,000 in 2020 to 375.0 in 2024 (+1.7%). The highest observed value was 436.9 in 2023 and the lowest 317.1 in 2021. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property counts dominate Palmer'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.
Mid-size municipal totals above are reported offenses, not safety advice for any single block. Reporting completeness still varies by year and agency.
Palmer leans on larceny-theft at 39% of reported offenses, with a moderate mix index of 3,118.
Violent offenses are 39% of the municipal total - a violence-heavy book for a mid-size city.
Palmer offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (when validated); 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 | 72 | 574.4 |
| Larceny-Theft | 47 | 375 |
| Burglary | 15 | 119.7 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 10 | 79.8 |
| Arson | 4 | 31.9 |
| Violent Crime | 47 | 375 |
| Aggravated Assault | 43 | 343.1 |
| Rape | 4 | 31.9 |
| Murder | 0 | 0 |
| Robbery | 0 | 0 |
Lead series · fell across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
Secondary series · rose · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 12,200 | 368.9 | 901.6 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 12,300 | 317.1 | 666.7 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 12,393 | 338.9 | 1000.6 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 12,361 | 436.9 | 776.6 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 12,534 | 375 | 574.4 |
Palmer Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Palmer's 119 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 Palmer in population. Their populations run from 12,053 to 12,906, against 12,534 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Palmer sits at 375/100K violent (grade C); the Massachusetts cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
Palmer at 375/100K violent and 574.4/100K property - matched below outside Massachusetts (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
375/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
574.4/100K here; violent-rate peers above excluded.
In 2024, Palmer reported 47 violent crimes and 72 property crimes, for a total of 119 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Palmer's violent crime rate decreased by 14.2%, and the property crime rate decreased by 26%.
The most common crime type in Palmer is larceny-theft, accounting for 39.5% of all reported crimes (47 incidents in 2024).
Mid-size read: Palmer 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 Palmer's mid-size city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Palmer, MA rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.
Bulk download: city crime dataset (CSV/JSON)
Put this to use
Put the Palmer, 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. Palmer is scored in the mid-size municipal band (12,534 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.