Spencer, MA has a A safety grade (89/100) with a violent crime rate of 82 per 100,000, 77% below the national average.
Spencer (12,130 people) sits in the mid-size municipal band. This page opens with per-100,000 FBI UCR rates, then MA and national benchmarks.
Spencer, MA carries a PlainCrime A safety grade with violent crime 77% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Spencer, MA shows violent crime at 82.4 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 280.3 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 77% 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
Spencer earns an A safety grade: violent crime runs 77% below the U.S. average, placing it safer than most U.S. cities.
Based on 10 reported violent incidents in a population of 12,130. 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
Spencer reported 10 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 12,130. 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 168.1 per 100,000 in 2020 to 82.4 in 2024 (-51.0%). The highest observed value was 168.1 in 2020 and the lowest 82.4 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 Spencer's 82.4 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Cohasset (81.8), Swampscott (81.7), Hopkinton (84.3), Berlin (84.7). 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 82.4 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Spencer ranks 225 of 317 — above 92 of the 316 other Massachusetts cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is -43.2% 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 is 64.7% of reported property offenses in Spencer, against a cohort median of 78.1%. The remainder is burglary (3) and motor vehicle theft (9). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
Property counts dominate Spencer'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 10 reported violent incidents in a population of 12,130. 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.
Mid-size municipal totals above are reported offenses, not safety advice for any single block. Reporting completeness still varies by year and agency.
| Offense | Count | Rate /100K |
|---|---|---|
| Property Crime | 34 | 280.3 |
| Larceny-Theft | 22 | 181.4 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 9 | 74.2 |
| Burglary | 3 | 24.7 |
| Arson | 0 | 0 |
| Violent Crime | 10 | 82.4 |
| Aggravated Assault | 10 | 82.4 |
| Murder | 0 | 0 |
| Rape | 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 | 11,896 | 168.1 | 664.1 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 12,014 | 108.2 | 532.7 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 11,953 | 108.8 | 527.1 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 11,928 | 142.5 | 427.6 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 12,130 | 82.4 | 280.3 |
Spencer's crime figures on this page originate from Spencer 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 Spencer in population. Their populations run from 11,910 to 12,395, against 12,130 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
These Massachusetts cities report the closest violent-crime rates to Spencer's 82.4/100K (same FBI UCR vintage rules; size peers above are excluded so the two lists stay distinct).
Mid-size read: Spencer 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 Spencer's mid-size city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Spencer, 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. Spencer is scored in the mid-size municipal band (12,130 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.