Crime Statistics to Get a Different Twist : Antelope Valley: The sheriff’s station will revise the reporting methods after quarterly comparisons showed a misleading drop in the high desert.

The commander of the Los Angeles County sheriff’s station in the Antelope Valley said Wednesday that he is going to revise the way statistics on major crime are released to the public.

The announcement came two days after a Times story questioning whether a new method of presenting statistics on reported major crimes, instituted by the station in February, produced a misleading impression of crime trends in the high desert.

This year, the station began comparing the crime rate of each quarter with the previous quarter--fall with summer, summer with spring and so on. Statistic experts said the method tends to produce lower reported crime increases because of the shorter time periods involved.

Many law enforcement agencies, including police departments in Los Angeles, Long Beach and San Francisco, use a method comparing time periods, such as months or quarters, with comparable periods from the year before. Statistical experts say it provides a more accurate picture of crime because it takes into account seasonal differences in crime.

When deputies in the Antelope Valley released their tally of the region’s crime last week, they showed the area’s overall crime rate up 4%, with homicides down 45%.

Using the common method, the previous year’s rate would have been up 19% and homicides up 33%.

Sgt. Bob Denham, a spokesman for the Antelope Valley Sheriff’s Station, said Wednesday that the commander, Capt. Tony Welch, said the station will now provide both kinds of statistics. Denham had said earlier that quarter-to-quarter comparisons gave a more immediate impression of crime trends.

“His attempt is to make crime statistics as understandable as he can,” Denham said of Welch.