Massachusetts
What Massachusetts's records show, how much of the state the FBI's data covers, and where the state publishes its own.
How Massachusetts handles a case
- Sets bail first
- Bail commissioner or clerk-magistrate (court closed); judge (court open)
- Who that is
- Judges and others
- Release on a schedule
- No
- Time to see a judge
- No hour limit set
- Money bail
- Allowed
- Risk assessment
- None statewide
- Prosecutor
- District attorney, one per judicial district, elected
- Public defense
- Mixed
- Jails run by
- County sheriff
- Who decides release first
When court is closed, a bail commissioner or a district court clerk-magistrate sets bail; neither is a judge. When court is open, a judge sets bail at arraignment. A person arrested for violating an abuse prevention order or for some domestic abuse charges can't be bailed for 6 hours except by a judge in open court.
G.L. c. 276, s. 57- Time to see a judge
A person arrested and not released must be brought to court for arraignment the same day if court is in session, or at its next session. The rule sets no hour limit. The U.S. Supreme Court's 48-hour rule for a probable cause finding applies as the federal floor.
Mass. R. Crim. P. 7(a)(1)- Money bail
Money bail is allowed, but release on a personal promise to appear is the default. A judge must consider what the person can afford, and must explain in writing why bail is needed when it will likely keep the person in jail for a long time.
G.L. c. 276, s. 58
Crime and arrests
No figures yet
FBI data coverage
- Population covered
- 99%
- of Massachusetts's people lived under an agency that reported to the FBI in 2025.
- Agencies on NIBRS
- 97%
- 414 of 423 agencies send incident detail. The rest send summary counts or nothing.
9 agencies not reporting through NIBRS
- Blandford Police DepartmentCity
- Boston University Medical CenterOther
- Capitol PoliceOther State Agency
- Conway Police DepartmentCity
- Cummington Police DepartmentCity
- Petersham Police DepartmentCity
- Richmond Police DepartmentCity
- State PoliceState Police
- Suffolk UniversityUniversity or College
Counties and agencies: no data yet
Source: FBI Crime Data Explorer, pulled 2026-09-26.
State crime reporting
- Program
- Massachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety and Security (EOPSS), Crime Reporting Unit
- Incident reporting
- Yes, EOPSS collects NIBRS from agencies (portal launched August 14, 2020 with NIBRS data covering more than 95% of the population).
- Annual report
- Annual crime reportNo annual report found online.
- Online portal
- Massachusetts Crime StatisticsData 1991 to 2025.
- What changed
- The portal launched in August 2020 under the criminal justice reform law and is the main publication. EOPSS publishes annual hate crime reports as PDFs.
Links and years checked 2026-09-26.
Massachusetts sources
- Massachusetts Crime StatisticsState · MA
Massachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety and Security · Incidents, Arrests · dashboard · continuous
EOPSS NIBRS and UCR program. Its query tools are hosted by a vendor at ma.beyond2020.com/ma_tops. Verified in a browser September 2026; mass.gov returns 403 to scripts.
Massachusetts Trial Court, Department of Research and Planning · Bail, Courts · dashboard, pdf · annual
Tableau dashboard of ROR, release on bail, held with bail, held without bail for District and BMC courts; quarterly dangerousness hearing dashboard; bail amount PDF reports. Mass.gov blocks non-browser clients.
- Massachusetts Trial Court statisticsState · MA
Massachusetts Trial Court, Department of Research and Planning · Courts · dashboard, pdf · annual
Court division and superior court by county: filings by type, FY2025 charges dataset. PDF FY2003-FY2020; Tableau Public FY2021-FY2025 (CSV URL behind AWS WAF).
Plus 83 national sources, from the FBI, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the Census Bureau, the courts, and others.