Waltham, MA has a B safety grade (69/100) with a violent crime rate of 252 per 100,000, 28% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · large city
At 65,488 residents, Waltham is a large city: FBI UCR Table 8 rates (per 100,000) here are read against MA and U.S. averages before the offense-family breakdown.
Data updated 2026-08-24
Waltham, MA carries a PlainCrime B safety grade with violent crime 28% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Waltham, MA shows violent crime at 252 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 699.4 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 28% 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.
2020–2024 direction
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 136.4 per 100,000 in 2020 to 252.0 in 2024 (+84.8%). The highest observed value was 252.0 in 2024 and the lowest 119.6 in 2021. 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 Waltham's 252.0 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Saugus (250.2), Dartmouth (250.1), Tewksbury (254.5), Peabody (254.7). 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 252.0 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Waltham ranks 75 of 317 — above 242 of the 316 other Massachusetts cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +75.2% 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.
Offense mix
Violent offenses are 26.5% of the 623 Part I offenses reported in Waltham for 2024, against a median of 21.4% across comparable Massachusetts cities — a gap of 5.1 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 counts dominate Waltham'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.
On a large city row, these are citywide reported offense totals - not neighbourhood advice. Conditions vary by place and time; reporting rates differ across jurisdictions.
Across 12.7 Census sq mi, Waltham logged 35.9 property and 12.9 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Waltham leans on larceny-theft at 55% of reported offenses, with a moderate mix index of 3,679.
Violent offenses are 26% of the municipal total; property offenses still dominate the count.
Waltham offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (12.7 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 | 458 | 699.4 |
| Larceny-Theft | 340 | 519.2 |
| Burglary | 82 | 125.2 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 36 | 55 |
| Arson | 7 | 10.7 |
| Violent Crime | 165 | 252 |
| Aggravated Assault | 137 | 209.2 |
| Robbery | 15 | 22.9 |
| Rape | 12 | 18.3 |
| Murder | 1 | 1.5 |
Lead series · rose across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
Secondary series · rose · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 62,339 | 136.4 | 622.4 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 62,693 | 119.6 | 473.7 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 63,525 | 151.1 | 557.3 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 63,797 | 250.8 | 846.4 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 65,488 | 252 | 699.4 |
Waltham Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Waltham's 623 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 Waltham in population. Their populations run from 59,601 to 73,123, against 65,488 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Waltham sits at 252/100K violent (grade B); the Massachusetts cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
Waltham at 252/100K violent and 699.4/100K property - matched below outside Massachusetts (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
252/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
699.4/100K here; violent-rate peers above excluded.
Out-of-state cities whose violent rate moved a similar share from 2023→2024 (+0.5% here); level-based peers above are excluded.
In 2024, Waltham reported 165 violent crimes and 458 property crimes, for a total of 623 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Waltham's violent crime rate increased by 0.5%, and the property crime rate decreased by 17.4%.
The most common crime type in Waltham is larceny-theft, accounting for 54.6% of all reported crimes (340 incidents in 2024).
Large-city read: Waltham's rates come from the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, CIUS Table 8, vintage 2024.
Incomplete reporters stay out of rate rankings. Cross-check population with Census ACS; state UCR programs for statewide context. Primary verify links: FBI.gov UCR, Census QuickFacts.
Disclaimer (large city): informational crime rates only - not legal, insurance, or personal-safety advice. Source: FBI UCR. Ask a qualified professional before acting.
Large-city rate methodology for how Waltham's large city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Waltham, 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. Waltham is scored here as a large city UCR reporter (65,488 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.