No matter what chart you use or how you play with the numbers, overall crime rates in Lawrence didn’t change much in the past two years.

But there are four different crime reporting methods and charts showing totals for each of them and they can now be found on the Lawrence Police Department’s Web site, www.lawrencepolice.org.

“We give you all the statistics anybody could possibly want,” Lt. David Cobb said.

It also can get a little confusing.

If you look at the total crime incidents for all four reporting methods, you find two of them showing crime went down in 2002 compared to 2001 and two of them showing that it went up. Either way, however, the differences in numbers are minimal.

For example, under the Uniform Crime Reporting statistics used by the FBI in compiling national statistics, criminal incidents in Lawrence went up in 2002, from 8,190 in 2001 to 8,287.

The UCR statistics, however, only consider the most serious crime reported in an incident. If there were other, lesser crimes that took place in the same incident, they are not counted.

Crime statistics compiled under the Kansas Incident Based Reporting System, used by the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, also show that overall crime incidents went up in 2002. Under KIBERS, there were 11,000 crimes committed in Lawrence in 2001 and 11,249 in 2002.

The KIBERS reporting method includes all offenses reported in the incident without determining the most serious crime.

Then there are the remaining “first statute incident summary” and “all statute incident summary” reporting methods. First statute summary includes only the most serious Kansas statute violation in an incident. All statute summary includes everything with all victims in an incident counted.

For the record, under first statute summary, there were 8,042 crimes in Lawrence in 2001 and 7,694 crimes in 2002. Under all statute summary, the numbers show 12,096 crimes in 2001 and 11,854 in 2002.

A close look at key specific crimes under the various reporting methods does not show any drastic changes between the two years.

Police officials are still studying the crime statistics for last year and haven’t drawn any specific conclusions yet, they said.

“I would hate to speculate; they could mean a number of things,” police spokesman Sgt. Mike Pattrick said.