The above statement — attributed to Mrs Juliet Cuthbert-Flynn, the successful former athlete now turned junior minister for national security — makes for a nice-sounding headline, especially coming from someone who knows something about sprinting.

However, we think the minister might have false-started somewhat by missing the point that crime is quite probably the most urgent problem afflicting the nation and solutions are needed at breakneck speed. Nearly every recent public poll says so.

On close examination of Mrs Cuthbert-Flynn’s statement, made at last week’s launch of the second staging of the European Union-Jamaica 5K/10K Run, she might be given the benefit of the doubt in that it is, at best, ambiguous. Minister Cuthbert-Flynn is likely suggesting that crime is not solvable overnight and calls for more than slap-dash solutions. If so, she would be right.

However, the statement could also be interpreted as warning the nation not to be in too much haste in the search for solutions to crime, apparently to avoid errors. If so, she would be wrong.

There is a more apt statement that the minister might wish to consider: ‘Make haste slowly’, an oxymoron which means to do things in a deliberate manner to reduce mistakes. In this instance, we would like to hope that approach is currently being taken.

Semantics aside, every effort — in the short, medium and long term — must be applied to deal with this scourge of crime and violence which has taken its toll on our country. All of us, and especially the government agencies, must be in a hurry to tackle crime.

There is little need at this stage to keep spouting statistics about the deleterious impact of this malady. It is a special day in the life of our nation if we can go through that day without one murder being reported.

No one doubts that once we bring crime under control Jamaica will soar economically. It is tiring to hear the United States, our primary source market for tourism, issuing travel advisories against visiting Jamaica. More importantly, Jamaica needs a break from the endless killings.

We in this space will never grow tired of reminding our political leaders of the importance of jointly mobilising the people to fight crime, without which all efforts will fail, as has been the case after decades of programmes and wasted resources.

In the same breath, we wish to commend the European Union for its continued support of Jamaica in the area of citizen security, which will benefit from the European Union-Jamaica 5K/10K Run 2024, scheduled for Sunday, March 10 in downtown Kingston.

In this regard, we also wish to underline the importance of the integrated approach to crime prevention, as outlined by Mrs Cuthbert-Flynn, in its support for the inter-school strategy across the targeted 34 primary and secondary schools.

Crime-fighting begins at that early stage and we are bound to reap dividends from the programme to expose parents to alternative ways of disciplining and sharpening dispute resolution skills through training at the HEART/NSTA Trust.

Mrs Cuthbert-Flynn will agree, we are sure, that the race against crime is both a sprint and a marathon.