The number of robberies or other crimes reported in Westmoreland County last year can be found with only a few clicks of a computer mouse.
State police have updated their Web site to make finding Uniform Crime Reports easier.
The site lists crime numbers as logged by state police and many of the other police departments in the state's 67 counties. The information can be found under the heading "Are you Aware."
"We had requests from the general public. This seems to be the information that they're interested in," said Trooper Linette G. Quinn, a state police spokeswoman.
Lt. Garret Rain, state police director of programming in the research department, said the crime reports have been available on the Internet site since 2001 but were not easy for the general public to find.
"It was primarily focused for different state entities and municipal and state law enforcement agencies," he said.
"We saw it wasn't very user-friendly to the outside world. We sat down, took off our cop glasses and put on our public citizens glasses and looked at what would be most informative to the public."
The information can help business professionals, educators, students and others to accomplish a variety of tasks, state law enforcement officials said.
The information may find its way into research papers or grant applications. Or it may be used to look at crime trends in specific communities or counties, they said.
State police are responsible for collecting the data from municipal police forces. Then they forward the data to the FBI.
Quinn said "80-some percent" of departments statewide filed information for 2003, the last reporting period available. Those departments represent areas with about 90 percent of the state's population, she said.
"There's no requirement to report," Quinn said. "There's no state law."
But she noted that the Legislature is considering a bill that would require police to file the reports.
Among the crimes listed on the Web site are the three deaths ruled as homicides in Westmoreland last year, along with reports of 240 sex-related offenses and 2,049 assaults.
The information also lists the rates of cases solved, in some cases including concluded cases from a previous year within the statistics.
For a look at the statistics, check ucr.psp.state.pa.us, and click on "Uniform Crime Reporting System."
From the latest Uniform Crime Report
-- New Kensington, 6.7 percent.
-- North Huntingdon Township, 6.3 percent.
-- Rostraver Township, 5.4 percent.
-- Monessen, 4.5 percent.
-- Jeannette, 4.4 percent.
-- Murrysville, 4.2 percent.
-- Latrobe, 2.2 percent.
-- Scottdale, 2.2 percent.
-- Penn Township, 1.1 percent.
Source: Uniform Crime Report
