Worcester, MA has a F safety grade (16/100) with a violent crime rate of 716 per 100,000, 103% above the national average.
FBI UCR 2023 · per-capita rates · large city
Worcester, MA Crime Rate & Safety
At 206,145 residents, Worcester 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.
Worcester, MA carries a PlainCrime F safety grade with violent crime 103% above the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2023, Worcester, MA shows violent crime at 715.5 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 1,628 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 103% above the U.S. average. PlainCrime assigns grade F from those rates. Figures are voluntary agency submissions joined to population denominators; incomplete coverage can move the number.
F safety grade
715.5/100K violent
1628/100K property
+103% vs U.S.
What the 2023 FBI UCR record shows for Worcester, MA
Position in the state cohort
Worcester reported a higher violent-crime rate than most comparable Massachusetts cities
At 715.5 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2023, Worcester ranks 7 of 316 — above 309 of the 315 other Massachusetts cities whose 2023 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +421.0% against the cohort median of 137.3. 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
Worcester's closest reported-rate comparisons are in the Massachusetts cohort
The nearest comparable 2023 records to Worcester's 715.5 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Ware (740.4), Brockton (665.5), Pittsfield (647.7), Tisbury (645.4). 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 make up an unusually large share of the reported mix
Violent offenses are 30.5% of the 4,831 Part I offenses reported in Worcester for 2023, against a median of 19.6% across comparable Massachusetts cities — a gap of 10.9 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.
2020–2023 direction
The reported violent-crime rate ended the window higher
Across 4 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 633.5 per 100,000 in 2020 to 715.5 in 2023 (+12.9%). The highest observed value was 715.5 in 2023 and the lowest 603.2 in 2022. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property counts dominate Worcester'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.
Worcester's 2023 municipal footprint
Across 37.4 Census sq mi, Worcester logged 89.8 property and 39.5 violent offenses per square mile in 2023.
Violent offenses are 31% of the municipal total; property offenses still dominate the count.
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (37.4 sq mi); mix index is HHI x 10,000 on the offense-type shares above. Distinct from the per-100K rates in the hero.
Property offenses lead Worcester's 2023 record
Offense
Count
Rate /100K
vs MA
Property Crime
3,356
1628
1101.2
Burglary
-
-
-
Larceny-Theft
-
-
-
Motor Vehicle Theft
-
-
-
Arson
-
-
-
Violent Crime
1,475
715.5
308.8
Murder
-
-
-
Rape
-
-
-
Robbery
-
-
-
Aggravated Assault
-
-
-
Worcester Crime Trend (2020-2024)
The chart omits 2024 rather than drawing an unsupported zero or partial-coverage dip. The table preserves the year and marks the gap.
Worcester property crime rate trend
Lead series · fell across 4 comparable years · FBI UCR
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program · split lines are the U.S. national averages
Worcester Police Department
Reporting agency for Worcester NIBRS-participating
Worcester Police Department filed the 2023 UCR row behind Worcester's 4,831 reported offenses (4-year span 2020-2023).
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.
Similar-Size Cities in Massachusetts
Crime rates read differently at different scales, so these are the Massachusetts cities closest to Worcester in population. Their populations run from 95,573 to 155,491, against 212,425 here. Or use our
side-by-side compare tool
to benchmark two cities directly.
In 2023, Worcester reported 1,475 violent crimes and 3,356 property crimes, for a total of 4,831 reported offenses.
Large-city read: Worcester's rates come from the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, CIUS Table 8, vintage 2023.
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.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2023 Worcester, MA rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.