Shirley, MA has a A safety grade (87/100) with a violent crime rate of 102 per 100,000, 71% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · small city
Shirley is a small municipal reporter (6,857 on the UCR row). Per-100,000 violent and property rates are shown with MA and U.S. context.
Data updated 2026-09-05
Shirley, MA is safer than most U.S. cities, and earns an A PlainCrime safety grade, where violent crime runs 71% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Shirley, MA shows violent crime at 102.1 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 277.1 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 71% 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
Shirley reported 7 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 6,857. 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 275.2 per 100,000 in 2020 to 102.1 in 2024 (-62.9%). The highest observed value was 275.2 in 2020 and the lowest 102.1 in 2024. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Comparable rate records
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Shirley's 102.1 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Billerica (101.6), Rutland (102.9), Newbury (101.3), Carver (100.8). 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.
Position in the state cohort
At 102.1 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Shirley ranks 204 of 317 — above 113 of the 316 other Massachusetts cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is -29.6% 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-offense composition
Larceny-theft is 63.2% of reported property offenses in Shirley, against a cohort median of 78.1%. The remainder is burglary (1) and motor vehicle theft (6). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
Offense mix
Violent offenses are 26.9% of the 26 Part I offenses reported in Shirley for 2024, against a median of 21.4% across comparable Massachusetts cities — a gap of 5.5 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.
Property counts dominate Shirley'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 7 reported violent incidents in a population of 6,857. 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.
Across 1.3 Census sq mi, Shirley logged 14.4 property and 5.3 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Shirley leans on larceny-theft at 46% of reported offenses, with a moderate mix index of 3,107.
Violent offenses are 27% of the municipal total; property offenses still dominate the count.
Shirley offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (1.3 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 | 19 | 277.1 |
| Larceny-Theft | 12 | 175 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 6 | 87.5 |
| Burglary | 1 | 14.6 |
| Arson | 0 | 0 |
| Violent Crime | 7 | 102.1 |
| Aggravated Assault | 5 | 72.9 |
| Rape | 2 | 29.2 |
| Murder | 0 | 0 |
| Robbery | 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 | 7,632 | 275.2 | 432.4 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 7,641 | 222.5 | 301 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 7,228 | 207.5 | 249 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 6,595 | 166.8 | 272.9 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 6,857 | 102.1 | 277.1 |
Shirley Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Shirley's 26 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 Shirley in population. Their populations run from 6,664 to 6,985, against 6,857 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Shirley sits at 102.1/100K violent (grade A); the Massachusetts cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
In 2024, Shirley reported 7 violent crimes and 19 property crimes, for a total of 26 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Shirley's violent crime rate decreased by 38.8%, and the property crime rate increased by 1.5%.
The most common crime type in Shirley is larceny-theft, accounting for 46.2% of all reported crimes (12 incidents in 2024).
Small-city read: Shirley 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 Shirley's small city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Shirley, MA rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.
Bulk download: city crime dataset (CSV/JSON)
Put this to use
Put the Shirley, 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. Shirley is scored as a small-city UCR reporter (6,857 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.