The release of 2024 statistics earlier this month indicated crime was down in Massachusetts last year, which the Healey administration said showed the state’s “strong momentum” towards reducing crime and maintaining public safety. But the data paint a more complicated picture, one in which arrests are up and the overall downward trend masks worrisome trends around things like shoplifting and hate crimes.
The preliminary 2024 crime data show there were 231,442 crimes reported in Massachusetts in 2024, down 6.53% from 2023 when looking at all crimes and down 4.4% compared to 2023 when looking just at “part one” crimes like murder, rape, robbery, arson, larceny and burglary. There were 91,619 arrests here last year, an increase of 36 arrests (0.04%) compared to 2023.
When looking at the number of crimes recorded annually per 100,000 people, the state’s crime rate was down 6.5% in 2024, from 3,532.6 crimes per 100,000 people in 2023 to 3,301.9 crimes per 100,000 people last year. The statewide crime rate has been slightly higher since immediately before the COVID-19 pandemic (2,930 crimes per 100,000 people in 2019) but remains well below this century’s high point set in 2008 (4,565.2 crimes per 100,000 people).
There were 132 homicides reported in Massachusetts last year, an 11.4% decrease from 2023 and below the five-year average of 146 homicides, the state said. Robberies were down 8.6% (2,631 in 2023 compared to 2,406 in 2024), aggravated assaults were down 5.7%(17,835 in 2023 versus 16,813 in 2024) and motor vehicle thefts were down sharply last year, 16.1% (8,558 thefts in 2023 and 7,182 in 2024). The state said fraud-related offenses, including identity theft and welfare fraud, saw double-digit declines.
Zooming into the subset of criminal offenses that involved a firearm, the state said homicides with a firearm were down nearly 22%, robberies with a firearm were down by nearly 16%, and aggravated assaults with a firearm were down by just more than 10%.
Mondays saw more criminal incidents than any other day of the week in 2024, with 35,338 crimes reported to have taken place on Mondays. Fridays were a close second with 35,251 incidents reported. Sundays were the least active by number of incidents, with 28,148 incidents reported.
“This new data is encouraging and reflects the important work that law enforcement and community partners do day in and day out to keep the people of Massachusetts safe,” Gov. Maura Healey said in a statement. “We know there is always more work to be done, and we remain committed to bringing people together to continue to enhance public safety in communities across the state.”
The state generally did not highlight data showing where that work remains to be done, but the state press release on crime stats declared, “While national and regional trends, such as a rise in shoplifting offenses, also impacted Massachusetts, overall crime reductions, including violent crime, affirm the positive impact of statewide public safety strategies.”
Shoplifting is up 20.8% over 2023, with 18,203 shoplifting incidents reported in 2024 compared to 15,068 the year before. Compared to before the COVID-19 pandemic (12,389 incidents in 2019), shoplifting incidents are up about 47%.
That trend is most pronounced in Suffolk County, where the number of reported shoplifting incidents has jumped from about 900 in 2019 to more than 4,300 incidents in 2024, an increase of more than 380% over five years.
Mounting public safety and health concerns in downtown Boston have been pushed to the forefront ahead of this fall’s mayoral election, and House Ways and Means Committee chairman Rep. Aaron Michlewitz, who represents much of the downtown area, is involved in efforts to address things like open drug use, shoplifting and petty crime that are especially visible in the Downtown Crossing / Boston Common area.
Last week, Boston police said shoplifting is up 15% so far in 2025 and city officials attributed some of the increase to businesses being more comfortable reporting incidents to the police.
“We want everything to be reported so that we can know how to formulate the best approach,” Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said during a press conference at police headquarters, according to NBC 10 Boston.
Public Safety and Security Secretary Terrence Reidy, who has led the state’s public safety secretariat since Republican Gov. Charlie Baker appointed him in 2021, said the new data “offers an encouraging snapshot-in-time” and “also reinforces the importance of staying focused and coordinated in our efforts to reduce crime.”
The administration also trumpeted more than $45 million it put towards targeted public safety initiatives in 2024, outlays that it says “have contributed to a measurable decline in crime in communities statewide.”
Through programs like the Shannon Community Safety Initiative, the Emerging Adult Reentry Initiative and the Commonwealth Project Safe Neighborhood, that state money has gone towards things like violence prevention efforts, reentry services, emerging adult initiatives, nonprofit security enhancements, and strategies to combat human trafficking and substance use disorder.
The state said that overall hate crime incidents decreased in 2024. And while that is the case -- the 466 hate crimes reported here last year were fewer than the 561 incidents on record in 2023 -- 2024 saw the second-most hate crimes of any year on record.
Among the bias-fueled incidents that saw declines last year were hate crimes whose victims were targeted because of an anti-transgender bias. The state data show a nearly 42% decline, from 24 such incidents in 2023 to 14 in 2024, the same number as in 2022.
But state officials also pointed to “a troubling 20.5% increase” in antisemitic hate crimes last year (data show 130 incidents in 2024 compared to 105 in 2023, 61 in 2022, 56 in 2021 and 39 in 2020). The state data list only 23 other hate crimes categorized as being anti-religion last year: 10 anti-Islamic incidents, six that were targeted towards an “other” religion, two anti-Catholic events, two incidents that were against other Christian faiths, two anti-Sikh incidents and one that targeted atheism.
For the first time since the state began tracking such incidents in 1991, incidents with an anti-Jewish bias surpassed anti-Black incidents as the most reported hate crime in Massachusetts, officials said.
Since the fall, Westfield Sen. John Velis and Concord Rep. Simon Cataldo have been leading the state’s new Commission on Combating Antisemitism, which they have said aims to stamp out Massachusetts’ recent “ignominious reputation as a hub of antisemitic activity.”
Massachusetts recorded 438 antisemitic incidents in 2024 as reported this spring in the Anti-Defamation League’s annual Audit of Antisemitic Incidents, which has a wider lens than crime data reported from local departments. The ADL’s count was one fewer than in 2023, but still the fifth-highest number of incidents of any state in the country.
The group said the number of antisemitic incidents it counts here has spiked 188% since 2022.
The state said the FBI is expected to release its official and audited 2024 national crime statistics in September and that Massachusetts crime analysts will “continue to review data to identify emerging trends” in the meantime.
