Volunteers who help local police through neighborhood watch programs may soon get the chance to go online to report unusual activity.

(COPRS is)...a program that enables volunteers to use their home computers to alert local authorities when they see suspicious characters or any questionable activities near their homes. That information, fed to safety dispatchers from home computers, appears as icons on computerized maps that can be viewed by authorities and by other neighborhood volunteers.

"If police are pursuing someone who drives into a volunteer's neighborhood, the dispatcher can ask them to watch which way the car turns to let the police know," said (Sanford) Morganstein, who has been working with local police departments to make the software as helpful as possible.

Besides providing neighborhood information, the software also helps prepare reports for local police and forwards appropriate information to other authorities, such as the FBI, Morganstein said.

For more information, www.coprs.com.