The citizens of St. Marys can now report minor crimes online in an effort to save police money and man-hours to investigate and solve crimes and patrol the community.

The city has contracted with BobCOP, to set up a simple Web site where citizens can directly report minor crimes. The software has a multitude of functions, from alerts to searches to robust database features and storage. The developers said the service is simple to use for both the police agency and the citizen.

Run remotely or in-house, BobCOP allows law enforcement personnel to take advantage of the power and interactivity of the Internet.

Report A Minor Crime

For minor crimes where there is no immediate suspect or investigation, an officer's time is taken going out to collect information. BobCOP does the same job, allowing a citizen to quickly report details of minor crimes while freeing officers to work on more serious crimes.

The self-reporting tool also allows reports to be submitted in other languages, including Spanish, French, Japanese and Chinese.

"Having come from a law enforcement background, I can certainly see the need to have a simpler way to collect basic information," said Samuel Anderson with TekBrokers Ventures LLC, the developers of the program. "BobCOP has proven to not only be an effective tool for gathering information. it has also proven to be incredibly useful to citizens, because it gives them an easy way to access their police departments and report details of crimes. In essence, it saves money, and it also seems to create a more involved populace."

According to the company's Web site, BobCOP is in use in at least 10 police agencies, including the Starke, Fla., Police Department.