ALL law-abiding Jamaicans would have approved of Opposition Leader Portia Simpson Miller’s pledge that the Opposition will co-operate fully in the fight against crime.

Jamaicans have a right to expect that their political leaders will always put the country first. The trouble is that Jamaicans have grown weary of the excessive talk but not enough action in dealing with a problem that is not only claiming in excess of 1,500 lives annually, but is also stifling national confidence.

Note the cry of the pub owner in quiet Broadgate, St Mary after her business place was shot up on Thursday night, leaving three people — including a gunman — dead: “I don’t know if I want to continue this bar thing; I really can’t deal with it. I (am) not waiting for them to come back for me.”

All across the land people frightened by the criminal scourge are reacting in similar fashion. And yet the powers that be — despite their words to the contrary — continue in the same old way, as if the evil being wrought by criminals should simply be accepted as normal human behaviour.

Time and again we have heard the expressions of frustration from senior police personnel about the bureaucracy and delays in basic legislation that would aid the anti-crime cause. They, like ordinary Jamaicans, struggle to understand how it is that a range of anti-crime Bills intended to make life more difficult for criminals has still not been finalised after two years.

The six crime Bills — an act to amend the Bail Act; an act to further amend the Firearms Act; an act to amend the Offences Against the Person Act; an act to amend the Parole Act; an act to make interim provision in relation to the grant of bail in specified circumstances; and an act to make interim provision extending the powers of arrest and detention under Sections 50B and 50F of the Constabulary Force Act — went before a select committee of Parliament in 2008.

We were told by the attorney general last month that the Bills, which were found to be wanting in some aspects, were still in the redrafting stage. But surely, if fighting crime is a priority in the minds of our leaders, all possible steps should have been taken to accelerate the process. It is not acceptable that it should be taking two years.

Also, political parties, their leaders and members who contributed so scandalously to the development of the gun culture and the ‘garrisonisation’ of entire communities, decades ago, need to take responsibility. Back then, the idea was to secure votes to win elections. Today, it may be true to say that politicians, for the most part, no longer have control in the so-called garrisons or over the ‘dons’ who run such communities.

But in the case of the Jamaica Labour Party Government and Prime Minister Mr Bruce Golding, the current extradition imbroglio is surely evidence that the chickens have come home to roost.

It’s been said before, and we say again: for their own good, our political parties need to own up to their misdeeds of the past and to disassociate themselves from the dons, criminal gangs and syndicates. They need to work closely with the police and the courts to destroy those criminal enterprises, bring in the guns and restore the rule of law.

It’s no secret that, down the years, money from the criminal networks has helped to fund both political parties. All of that has to end. Our political leaders need to show not just by word, but by deed, that they are dead serious about fighting crime.