As National Security Minister Dr Horace Chang and others have noted, while police statistics show an overall downward trend in “serious crimes”, murders on a national basis continue to surge.

Statistics released a week ago showed murders for January 1 to May 27 at 594. That’s up from 555 for the similar period in 2021.

Also, while murder figures have been trending down in traditional, mostly urbanised hot spots such as Kingston and St Andrew, St Catherine, and Clarendon, the opposite is mostly true elsewhere.

In St Thomas in the east, murders moved from nine, January 1 to May 27 of last year, to 15 for the comparable period this year.

For the comparable period in Manchester, murders moved from 11 to 15 and in St Elizabeth the figure increased from 11 to 19.

In St James and Westmoreland, both of which have developed a traumatising reputation for violent crime in recent years, there has been significant increase in murders. In 2021, there were 37 in Westmoreland for January to May 27. The murder figure for that western parish jumped to 61 for the similar period this year. In St James it increased from 70 to 101 for the comparable period.

It’s easy to believe that murderous criminals — be they scammers, drug traffickers, extortionists, robbers, et al — are increasingly shifting operations from high-policed hot spots to other areas.

We agree with Dr Chang that there can be no easing up of ‘hard policing’ in combating these hardened criminals.

“Shottas cannot be dealt with by social investment…” says Dr Chang. We agree. The security forces, with the support of law-abiding Jamaicans, must seek to eliminate the ‘shottas’ and their cronies, by whatever legitimate means available.

On the other hand, what we believe to be very necessary social investment must be used in such a way that the coming into being of new and succeeding generations of ‘shottas’ is stymied.

For social investment to work, it should be realised that it needs to be a long-term, long-haul effort. We have said before, we say again: violent crime in Jamaica did not begin yesterday and it won’t end tomorrow.

We welcome the comment from Dr Chang that “While it is the role of the police to save lives, sustainable reduction of criminal violence must be a whole-of-government, all-of-society approach. We must facilitate a process of behavioural change among our people in order to reduce the pervading culture of violence that underpins much of the criminal activities in our country.”

How is that to be done? It seems to us that social investment must target children and young people, not just through basic education and training but using all available means — guided by the help/advice of relevant experts — to achieve acceptable behavioural patterns.

As we have said repeatedly in this space, that drive for behavioural change can’t be a piecemeal effort. It seems obvious to us that an “all-of-society” project to fight crime and anti-social behaviour will require mass mobilisation. It should involve all hands on deck, including grassroots community leaders, our two political parties, government agencies, teachers, preachers, business leaders at all levels, trade unionists, private sector groups, and all those who care about Jamaica’s future.

Our Government and all political leaders standing together must lead the way.