Crime Mapping Now Available in Westport

Theft, vehicle burglary and quality of life offenses, such as those pertaining to drugs, alcohol and disorder made up nearly 75 percent of the crimes committed in Westport over the past 30 days.

That's according to a recent analysis by CrimeReports.com, a crime mapping service the Westport Police Department made available to residents this week.

The Web site allows residents to find why, where and when police officers were called to their neighborhood. 

The remaining 25 percent of the crimes in Westport, according to the analysis, consisted of burglary, vehicle theft, assault, robbery and other, which could include police responding to an alarm, a domestic violence call or a weapons offense.

This information and more is available free of charge to anyone online.

By typing "Westport CT" into the search feature on CrimeReports.com, residents can see where crimes have occurred in near real-time data, what the offenses were and where registered sex offenders live. 

The site also allows residents to register for e-mail alerts to learn when crimes are committed in their neighborhoods or on their streets. Just sign up by logging onto the Web site and click on "get crime alerts." Users can control the e-mail crime alerts they receive by specifying the address, the crime types and the distance from the address from which they wish to receive alerts.

Police hope the site will serve as a useful tool not only for residents to stay informed about what is happening in their community but also to engage the public in helping to solve crimes. 

"A lot of times they don't even know there are crimes being reported in and around their residence," said Capt. Sam Arciola of the Westport Police Department. "(The use of this site) will pay us back in dividends becaue people may not know a theft was reported right down the street and they may have information ... that may be very important to what the crime was all about.

The Crime Reports service is free to the public and is updated every 24 hours, Arciola said, though information will be preliminary and subject to change during the course of an investigation.

"It's the closest thing to real time that we can get," Arciola said.

More information can also be found on the town's Web site here.