Crime Report Doesn’t Add Up, City Says : Statistics: Rate of increase may be lower. State agency says population was not included in early figures.

City officials have complained that the state’s recently released crime statistics don’t accurately reflect the crime rate in the city, and the state agrees.

“The figures released were in our preliminary report, and they don’t factor in population,” said Kati Corsaut, a Sacramento spokeswoman for the state Department of Justice. “You can’t figure a crime rate without population, and our report which factors in population with the number of crimes is due out in May.”

At issue are crime statistics released last week by the state Department of Justice’s Division of Law Enforcement.

Those figures showed that Huntington Beach topped all other cities of 100,000 or more population in the percentage increase of violent crimes from 1991 to 1992. The state report showed that Huntington Beach had 862 violent crimes--murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault--in 1992 compared to 644 in 1991, a 33.9% one-year increase.

Police Chief Ronald E. Lowenberg told the City Council that when population is factored in, Huntington Beach only had a 3.3% crime increase in 1992 compared to 1991. Moreover, said Lowenberg, the city’s crime rate dropped 12% between 1990--a relatively high crime year--and 1992.

Huntington Beach, the third largest city in the county, has a population of about 185,000.

Lowenberg said most violent crimes “occur with such low frequency in this city that any change will show an alarming percentage increase.”

Corsaut, of the state Department of Justice, said Tuesday that she agrees that crime statistics are meaningful only if population is considered. “Otherwise you’re not really getting an accurate reflection of what crime is doing in a given community,” she said.

Corsaut said the Justice Department released the preliminary figures last week, which do not factor in a city’s population, “because there is always such a demand for the figures when they’re first available.” She said the department’s report in May, which will factor in city population, will be the best reflection of a community’s crime situation.