I have received significant positive feedback about my recent court and police activity reports.

Those reports offer two different views of the local public-safety system. Police activity records show what officers respond to and do, while court records show the criminal and non-traffic cases filed locally.

I recently found a third public resource that adds another layer of information.

The Pennsylvania Uniform Crime Reporting System, commonly known as PA UCR, collects standardized crime statistics submitted by law-enforcement agencies across the Commonwealth. Members of the public can search the data by agency, county, municipality, offense and other criteria through the state’s Crime in Pennsylvania dashboard.

The system includes information about reported offenses, arrests, clearances, stolen and recovered property and other crime-related statistics. Its report center also offers tools for examining offense and arrest trends over time.

The three police departments serving the Upper Merion Area all appear in Pennsylvania’s UCR system:

That includes West Conshohocken, the smallest of the three municipalities covered by Upper Merion Area Spotlight.

However, the agencies’ publicly available records are not equally current.

As of September 9, 2026, I found that Upper Merion’s publicly visible 2026 UCR data ended in April. Bridgeport and West Conshohocken have also contributed data to the statewide system.

Participation in Pennsylvania’s UCR program is voluntary. The state notes that the accuracy and completeness of the statistics depend primarily on the information submitted by participating law-enforcement agencies.

The public portal does not explain why Upper Merion’s records stop in April. The gap could reflect delayed submissions, state processing, a technical issue or a pause in reporting. What I can confirm is that more recent Upper Merion records were not publicly visible when I reviewed the system.

The UCR records also add context to how each local police department makes routine information available to residents.

Bridgeport Police publishes a detailed public police blotter every week. Each report generally includes the date and time, block-level location and type of police activity.

The Bridgeport blotter includes considerably more than reported offenses. Traffic stops, directed patrols, medical assistance, welfare checks, alarms, disturbances, building checks and other public-service activities all appear in the reports.

Residents can access that information without filing a public-records request.

West Conshohocken does not appear to publish a comparable police blotter. However, the borough’s police department contributes information through Pennsylvania’s UCR system.

Upper Merion publishes police annual reports and selected response statistics through the township’s police reports page. However, the most recent annual report available is from 2024, and the response statistics have not been updated in 2026.

The township does not publish a weekly, incident-level activity blotter comparable to Bridgeport’s. Its publicly visible UCR information currently stops in April.

To obtain more recent detailed police activity records, I have filed Right-to-Know requests with Upper Merion Township.

The township provided me with more than 5,000 police activity entries covering June and most of July in response to my first request. I used those records to create my first Upper Merion police activity report.

I have now submitted a second Right-to-Know request for August.

Pennsylvania UCR statistics should not be confused with a police activity blotter or court report.

A police activity log includes traffic stops, medical calls, welfare checks, alarms, patrols, public assistance and many other activities that may have no connection to a reported crime.

UCR data focuses on offenses and arrests reported to the state under standardized classifications. It may include reported offenses that never result in an arrest or court case.

Court records show cases and charges that have entered the judicial system. A criminal filing represents an allegation, not a conviction.

Because these three sources measure different parts of the system, their totals should not be expected to match.

Together, however, they can provide a more complete picture:

A reported offense may never produce an arrest. An arrest may involve multiple charges. Charges may later be withdrawn, dismissed or changed. None of these records, standing alone, establishes that someone was convicted of a crime.

The UCR portal gives residents another way to examine public-safety information and longer-term trends within their communities.

I plan to continue reviewing the system as part of my local data reporting. It may be particularly helpful for examining reported offenses and arrests over longer periods, provided the participating agencies’ submissions are reasonably current and complete.

For current police activity, Bridgeport’s weekly blotters and Upper Merion records obtained through Right-to-Know requests will remain my primary sources. My court reports will continue documenting the charges and cases entering the local court system.

Residents can explore the statewide information through the Pennsylvania UCR public portal and its report center.

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Thank you for reading,

Corey