HOURS ahead of an address to the nation by National Security Minister Peter Phillips to outline new crime fighting plans, the Opposition Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) asked the government not to push the panic button as it searches for a solution to the nation’s growing crime problem.

Instead, its the party’s shadow spokesman on national security Derrick Smith, at a press conference at the JLP’s Belmont Road headquarters, asked the government to flush the security ministry with resources and manpower to put a dent the spiralling crime wave.

“Don’t panic,” Smith urged Phillips ahead of his broadcast.

“.We need steady hands to deal with this crime situation that has been facing the country for such a very long time,” he said.

Presenting a four-point crime plan, Smith, accompanied with North-Western St James Member of Parliament Dr Horace Chang, in whose constituency there has been 28 murders this year, said the party remained committed to its pledge to give the crime portfolio top priority under a JLP government.

“The minister is scheduled to make his statement tonight (Monday). And we do hope it will be something new and different, because the public is rapidly losing confidence in the government, the minister and indeed, the security forces to deal with the scourge on the country for a very long time,” Smith told reporters..

According to the JLP spokesman, the security minister should come to the table with a crime plan of substance, and should convince Cabinet colleagues that his ministry should get priority attention.

The minister’s plans, he said, should include “lots of resources, sustained social intervention, better management of manpower and resources and new strategies to rid the police of corruption.”

Said Smith: “In your presentation minister, you have to speak about social intervention, because it goes hand in hand. And not just an announcement about social intervention, an announcement that will be sustained overtime,” he said.

At the same time, Chang, a deputy leader of the JLP, likened criminal acts in Montego Bay to terrorism, and urged the administration to increase resources and manpower to deal with rising crime in the resort town.

He said government must do whatever it takes, as solving the problem was important to the national psychic, and warned the government that the problem could help destroy the tourism product not only in Montego Bay, but in Ocho Rios.

“Ocho Rios is not too far from Montego Bay. It is not three years away from what is happening in Montego Bay,” said Chang, as he appealed for help. “Ocho Rios along with Montego Bay are the tourists capitals of the island,” he said.