If anyone needs further convincing about the urgent necessity to mobilise the nation in an all-out war against criminal gunmen, the chilling police statistics published in yesterday’s edition of this newspaper should obliterate all remaining doubt.

Even though the Opposition spokesman on crime, Mr Fitz Jackson’s reaction could be mistaken for glee, he at least welcomed the start of the multi-stakeholder engagement on crime, though he spoiled it with a foolish call to prematurely end the states of public emergency (SOEs).

Indeed, dismantling the SOEs before the stakeholder engagement can produce a nationwide assault on crime, would certainly make matters worse. If things are as bad as they are, imagine how much worse it could be without the SOEs.

According to police figures, up to Saturday, December 28, 2019, there were 1,326 murders committed in Jamaica, which is 43 more than the similar period in 2018; representing a 3.4 per cent increase in murders.

The homicide numbers by themselves do not tell the whole story because there were 1,246, or 90 more shootings for the period, reflecting a 7.8 per cent increase in those incidents, in which — no doubt — many would have been maimed and wounded.

But then, truth be told, nothing is happening that sensible Jamaicans, including schoolchildren, do not already know. No government has been able to get a firm grip on crime, as much as politicians would like to pretend otherwise.

The last great hope that this nation has to bring murders down to a tolerable level is for people like Mr Jackson and his Opposition People’s National Party (PNP) and the governing Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) to unite the country to fight crime.

Politicians know where the guns and gunmen are. They know what it takes to equip the security forces. They know that they have to unfetter the police. They know that their party members and supporters will not give up the gunmen in their communities unless their MPs, councillors and caretakers give the go-ahead.

It is time that the multi-stakeholder activities move above ground to involve a massive programme of bringing Jamaicans together to flush out the criminals through community organisations, not unlike the neighbourhood watch/home guard.

In the meantime, we note that while the human rights groups and the Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM) have stultified the police force with their persistent claims of extrajudicial killings, it is the murderers who have been emboldened.

There is nothing to replace active policing that stares down the gunmen. Courageous policemen are a necessary part of the mix in fighting crime.

So, for example, when an SSP Renato Adams turned up in a crime-infested community with 150 trucks and cars loaded with armed policemen, the gunmen fled. When Cornwall ‘Bigga’ Ford led his men on an unflinching raid, gunmen ran, as it should be.

At the head of the liberated communities welcoming them as heroes were usually the helpless old women and old men. But those cops who would be willing to put their lives on the line in such manner, won’t do it, knowing they do not have the backing of their leaders.