The Tribune

FROM the off, Prime Minister Philip “Brave” Davis made it clear he had not expected to be giving a national address on crime last night.

He said he would rather have been using the time to set out plans for national development – until 11 murders in 14 days changed that.

So crime it was, although that change of plan is the first clue that this was less a sweeping raft of changes and more a repeat in part of what we have heard before.

Mr Davis talked of anti-gang legislation – which we have heard talked about before, though we have not yet seen the draft of the law and there is no date set for implementation.

We have heard, especially recently, of a push to convince judges to deny bail for murder suspects on the basis, as Mr Davis said last night, that “releasing these men on the streets is akin to a countdown to a death sentence”.

The trouble, of course, as pointed out by the judiciary last week, is that people have constitutional rights. How long can people accused – not yet convicted – of a crime be detained before those rights are violated? If someone spends two years in jail only to be found innocent, they cannot get those two years back.

Human rights are a counterbalance – and one Mr Davis notes as he warns of another phase in the police response to recent murders. He said there will be “more intrusive policing”, saying “we will not violate anyone’s civil liberties, but you are likely to be impacted by more roadblocks and unannounced police action”.

He warns that this may make people late for appointments or delay plans but “this is a small price to pay for the collective benefit”. A price he will not be paying, albeit, as he swooshes past with his police escort.

But, more roadblocks and, with talk of more patrols in high-crime areas, more saturation strategy. The same as ever, but more so, presumably. We have had this before, of course, and it comes at a cost, with extra expenditure in times of heavy saturation patrols for police overtime and so on. No mention was made in last night’s speech of a dollar figure attached to the measures Mr Davis described.

Not that the dollars are not worth spending if it makes our streets safer – but it is testament to how seriously the government is taking the matter if it has budgeted extra to deal with the necessary costs.

The most notable part of the speech in terms of dealing with the threat of crime is that a strategy to deal with “the entire criminal lifecycle” was agreed in August, and in October a task force to deal with gangs and justice was convened to implement that strategy.

It is surprising we have not heard more of this before now – with weekly meetings being held on the matter. What fruit that has borne thus far has not been detailed, while Mr Davis said he was also asking ministers to weigh in with ways to improve conflict resolution in our society.

So while we might say that much of what has been announced in the national address is a repackaging in some ways of what we have heard before, there does appear to have been other matters developing in the background too that have come to the fore.

What we do not need is a parading of police resources so that things are being seen to be done. What we do need is the current spike of murders to be curtailed, then a sustained effort to keep pressing back against crime, especially the killings driven by gang rivalries and young men who do not know better ways to deal with conflicts than a knife or a gun.

The issue of civil liberties cannot be neglected, either – The Tribune has reported too many times on cases where individuals have said confessions have been beaten out of them or that they have been “tortured” by police, while heels seem to have been dragged in cases where officials and officers have been accused of crimes. Justice must be even-handed for all.

Nothing has been outlined to show what success looks like in regard to this latest initiative. The Police Commissioner has not so far said that he aims to keep murders below 100 as he did for the past few years, before not keeping to that mark.

But what is clear is that if crime was not at the forefront of the government agenda before, then it has been pushed to the top by this wave of murders. The plan has been laid out. Now we will see if it works.