Wellesley, MA has a A+ safety grade (91/100) with a violent crime rate of 47 per 100,000, 87% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · mid-size city
Wellesley (31,973 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 2026-08-24
Wellesley, MA carries a PlainCrime A+ safety grade with violent crime 87% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Wellesley, MA shows violent crime at 46.9 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 484.8 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 87% 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
Wellesley reported 15 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 31,973. 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.
Position in the state cohort
At 46.9 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Wellesley ranks 275 of 317 — above 42 of the 316 other Massachusetts cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is -67.7% 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.
Comparable rate records
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Wellesley's 46.9 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Newburyport (46.8), Newton (48.9), Concord (49.1), Granby (49.6). 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 8.8% of the 170 Part I offenses reported in Wellesley for 2024, against a median of 21.5% across comparable Massachusetts cities — a gap of 12.7 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.
2020–2024 direction
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 35.0 per 100,000 in 2020 to 46.9 in 2024 (+34.0%). The highest observed value was 60.8 in 2022 and the lowest 17.3 in 2021. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property counts dominate Wellesley'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 15 reported violent incidents in a population of 31,973. 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.
Across 10 Census sq mi, Wellesley logged 15.5 property and 1.5 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Wellesley's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (71% of 170 offenses; mix index 5,330).
Violent offenses are only 9% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Wellesley offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (10 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 | 155 | 484.8 |
| Larceny-Theft | 121 | 378.4 |
| Burglary | 21 | 65.7 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 13 | 40.7 |
| Arson | 0 | 0 |
| Violent Crime | 15 | 46.9 |
| Aggravated Assault | 12 | 37.5 |
| Rape | 3 | 9.4 |
| Murder | 0 | 0 |
| Robbery | 0 | 0 |
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 | 28,566 | 35 | 378.1 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 28,984 | 17.3 | 427.8 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 31,260 | 60.8 | 377.5 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 31,132 | 25.7 | 440.1 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 31,973 | 46.9 | 484.8 |
Wellesley Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Wellesley's 170 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 Wellesley in population. Their populations run from 30,599 to 32,821, against 31,973 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Wellesley sits at 46.9/100K violent (grade A+); the Massachusetts cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
Wellesley at 46.9/100K violent and 484.8/100K property - matched below outside Massachusetts (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
46.9/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
484.8/100K here; violent-rate peers above excluded.
In 2024, Wellesley reported 15 violent crimes and 155 property crimes, for a total of 170 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Wellesley's violent crime rate increased by 82.5%, and the property crime rate increased by 10.2%.
The most common crime type in Wellesley is larceny-theft, accounting for 71.2% of all reported crimes (121 incidents in 2024).
Mid-size read: Wellesley 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 Wellesley's mid-size city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Wellesley, 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. Wellesley is scored in the mid-size municipal band (31,973 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.