MANY METHODS FIGHT A.V. CRIME.

Byline: Charles F. Bostwick Daily News Staff Writer

Antelope Valley officials' efforts to cut crime have produced law enforcement strategies far removed from the image of a cop on the beat.

The strategies call for special teams, cooperation with citizens, tracking repeat offenders and even big-bucks projects like ``Men in Black,'' a $300,000 operation in which undercover deputies bought stolen goods and wound up arresting nearly 80 suspects - nearly all with criminal records.

``I think it's very proactive. I think it is community-oriented policing, going into neighborhoods and finding out what people are telling them,'' Dennis Davenport, Lancaster's assistant city manager, said of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department efforts.

Palmdale and Lancaster earned the dubious distinction last week as the only cities with populations over 100,000 in Los Angeles County where serious crime went up last year.

Ongoing efforts to counteract crime include Palmdale's 22-month-old Partners Against Crime campaign. It uses community service workers to clean trash from fields, convenes Neighborhood Watch meetings and puts deputies on foot patrol in downtown neighborhoods.

Officials claimed a first-year crime reduction of 23 percent in the neighborhoods it covered, and expanded it to other parts of the city.

In July, Palmdale created a Youthful Offenders Task Force - composed of two sheriff's deputies and a probation officer - to target juveniles suspected of committing daytime burglaries. The task force soon expanded into other crimes like auto theft, since many criminals specialize in more than one type of offense.

Lancaster has its own version of community policing, dubbed Target Oriented Policing, and a continuing program called High Desert Storm, which has bulldozed abandoned, crime-ridden duplexes, surveyed residents about their crime fears and put extra patrols into high-crime areas.

The $1 million Career Criminal Apprehension Program, financed by a state grant, will pay for two crime analysts, two clerks and a computer system to identify crime patterns and link them to possible suspects.

The city has applied for another state grant to pay for more monitoring and analysis of crimes linked to street gangs.

Lancaster's ``Men in Black'' undercover sting operation was financed by part of a $355,000 federal grant, which went mainly to pay overtime for deputies to cover the regular duties of the personnel involved in the operation.

It also provided $83,000 spent to buy $1 million worth of stolen guns, cars, cell phones, VCRs and drugs.

Deputies said 93 percent of the suspects rounded up April 1 at the end of the sting had criminal records, 38 percent were on parole or probation for earlier crimes and 40 percent were associated with gangs.