SAN JUAN, P.R. — The discrepancies in the Puerto Rico police logs were hard to miss. Burglaries, including stolen plasma televisions and jewelry, were coded as mere breaking and entering. Large-scale thefts of telephone company cables were labeled property damage.

After months spent investigating, it was clear to Norman O. Torrens, an internal affairs agent for the Puerto Rico Police Department, that scores of felony crimes in Vega Alta, in the north, were being intentionally recorded as misdemeanors. The result was that these crimes were not counted in statistics released by the Police Department to support its claim that while the murder rate was higher than ever, other felonies were declining.

“They are lying to the people of Puerto Rico by telling them that crime statistics are going down,” said Officer Torrens, 37, who was abruptly demoted this summer after presenting his findings, first to his supervisor and then to officials in Puerto Rico’s Justice Department. “The bosses are the ones who push this to happen. The culture here is if you don’t produce, you get nowhere.”

The manipulation of statistics, long suspected by Puerto Ricans, is just one of the systemic failures that the Police Department must reverse after a blistering report last month from the United States Department of Justice outlined widespread dysfunction and civil rights violations.