The rash of double and triple killings just lately reminds us that, notwithstanding undoubted gains by the security forces, violent crime remains a huge threat to the society.

Seven weeks into his job, Commissioner of Police Dr Carl Williams must by now have grown weary of visiting horrific crime scenes to commiserate with relatives, friends and neighbours of victims.

By now he will probably have visited yet another such scene, this time in May Pen, Clarendon, where a mother and her two sons were slaughtered yesterday by gunmen intent on the creation of fear and panic.

Back in mid-September, in his augural speech following his installation as police commissioner, Dr Williams pledged that the constabulary would “remain unrelenting in our quest to bring criminal offenders to justice”.

Said he: “We will never yield to criminal offenders who prey upon the innocent and vulnerable in the society.”

Yet, as we all know, no police force — regardless of how well-equipped it may be — can succeed on its own without strong and unequivocal support from the populace.

In Jamaica, the need for proactive support from the citizenry becomes many times more crucial because of the severe personnel and resource constraints facing the police. Those inadequacies won’t be resolved anytime soon, given the nation’s impoverished state and the ongoing economic structural adjustment programme.

The circumstances being what they are, this newspaper is at a loss regarding the seeming absence of focus on the part of Government towards the task of building resistance to crime at the community level.

We are not here calling for vigilantism. We are referring to community empowerment — the building of well-led neighbourhood watch and citizens groups. We refer to citizens with the shared goal and focus of defeating criminals and banding together in alliance with the police against their common enemy.

As we have pointed out repeatedly in this space, communities with such active groups invariably boast low crime rates. People in such communities routinely call the police to report the presence of strangers, unusual activity, etc. They are alert in defence of their communities. That’s a culture badly needed in every nook and cranny of Jamaica.

But that’s a culture which won’t come easily. It requires leadership. Which is where the Government, elected political representatives, the church, and so-called civil society must enter the equation.

Why, for example, can’t the prime minister, the Opposition leader, constituency representatives, et al, lead a powerful, integrated campaign on the ground, at community level, to discredit and undermine criminals?

Just as there is a focused campaign at community level to undermine and destroy the Aedes aegypti mosquito, why not the criminal?