'I'M NOT talking about reports, I'm talking about action,' the Prime Minister declared on Monday as he deemed this country's crime situation a public health emergency. 'We are operationalising a response to what is in effect a crisis.'

With there being more murders than days so far this year, the question is, however, whether this approach will coalesce into a truly potent intervention.

Knowing expectations are high, Dr Rowley sought to side-step the traditional pitfalls of 'crime-fighting plans' when he spoke on Monday.

Though invoking the language of public health management which demands specific lines of intervention, there was a pointed attempt to suggest there will be no reliance on yet another report of a commission or committee or inquiry or investigation.

There will also be, for the moment, no recourse to flashy operations or introduction of elite police squads.

'It is a quite wide and broad tapestry of action,' the PM said. 'The aim is to squeeze the criminal behaviour, the criminal conduct, out of the lives of people. But to do so you can't leave a vacuum. It has to be replaced with something else.'

There are merits to this approach, which is not new.

Crime has become so entrenched in our social life that it requires nothing less than a holistic strategy addressing the ways in which criminality is facilitated through social, economic and cultural factors.

But the Government's effort, according to Dr Rowley, will involve the permanent secretaries of the Ministry of Social Development and the Ministry of Health, the Office of the Prime Minister, the THA, the Ministry of Sport, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of National Security and the police.

The focus would appear to be on 'the youth population at various levels.'

'We will in short be preparing a better citizenry,' Dr Rowley said.

Though more details must be shared with the public, the general principle of a whole-of-government approach is welcomed, indeed long overdue.

But such an approach will be of little comfort to those seeking relief from daily fear due to the constant level of crime occurring in the country.

Alongside this plan of action must come steps to remove illegal firearms, combat police corruption and fix the criminal justice system.

There should be particular attention to the system of remand in which young people are sometimes held for years awaiting trial, housed with hardened convicts and others who have an interest in recruiting them to their enterprises.

None of this is unknown to the Government, of course.

We hope this new plan will, even if involving familiar themes, yield fresh results.

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