Even results can be deceiving.

The hard numbers suggest that both the Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) and the Cambridge Police Department (CPD) successfully combated crime this year. But behind the statistics lie two pensive police agencies, each struggling to solve internal disputes that may one day impact the communities they cover.

Total crime on Harvard's Cambridge and Boston campuses has declined more than 21 percent since 1997, including a nearly 30 percent drop in bike thefts, long the most persistent thorn in the side of campus law enforcers.

Although Cambridge's crime rate edged up slightly, numbers show the city is as safe as it's been in nearly 40 years.

But, as both HUPD and CPD officials admit, crime trends can change. And so both agencies hope to revive an internal sense of mission in the year ahead.

HUPD announced its plan for the future in early May--a restructuring aimed at an implementation of community policing. University Vice President and General Counsel Anne M. Taylor fired seven career lieutenants with many decades of service to begin this internal reform.

HUPD's rank and file initially had an overwhelmingly negative reaction to the layoffs--many refused to speak with The Crimson for fear they would lose their jobs.

Even HUPD Chief Francis D. "Bud" Riley's pride and joy--several of the 13 new officers he personally trained--said the changes had not improved morale.

But other officers were optimistic, hoping that once the storm blew over, HUPD would have a revived sense of internal harmony.

Harvard students reported five instances of sexual assault to HUPD in 1998. Two of those cases resulted in the alleged perpetrators--D. Drew Douglas and Joshua M. Elster, both of the class of 2000-being dismissed from campus.

On March 10, 1999, as a campus rally designed to raise awareness of sexual violence wound up, a Harvard-affiliated woman was raped in Byerly Hall.

Police have a suspect--but don't yet have the evidence they need to make an arrest.

Early 1999 also saw a brief upswing in muggings and assaults.

Beginning on March 19, when two students were mugged and assaulted in the Mather House courtyard, six Harvard-affiliated people reported they had been the victims of violent crimes.

Less than a month after the Mather assault, HUPD arrested Kevin Morrison, a Cantabrigian, and charged him with the crime. He is awaiting trial. HUPD hopes to pressure Morrison into disclosing the identities of two other suspects in the alleged assault.