It was important, as he did, that Dr. Peter Phillips, the security minister, injected a level of realism into the crime statistics, which he and the heads of the police and army reported on Thursday.

Like the security chiefs, we too welcome the reported 25 per cent decline in murders and other major crimes during the first seven months of this year. Indeed, 254 fewer homicides during the period is not something to be sniffed at.

The fact, though, is that 756 people were murdered in Jamaica between January and July, still a frighteningly high figure. Indeed, if there had been no more murder for the rest of the year, the absolute number of murders in Jamaica and the country's homicide rate would remain among the highest in the world.

For instance, the Canadian city of Toronto, with roughly the population of Jamaica, was seriously agitated last year when there were 79 homicides, or about three murders per 100,000 residents.

In Jamaica, the ratio was over 61 murders per 100,000 population. Moreover, the number of homicides in Jamaica up to July this year was 17 times the number in Toronto up to mid-August.

Jamaica, therefore, has a long way to go not only to match a city such as Toronto, but to come into the mainstream of the homicide rates of countries with an absence of war or significant sectarian conflicts. So, Dr Phillips was right to make the point that he would have to see "two or three years of the same level of reduction" before a definitive declaration that Jamaica had turned the corner on crime.

For now, it is enough to say that the figures are heading in the right direction. Security officials, however, have to recognise that the lid they have in place remains tenuous.

There remains grave danger in the many guns which, though now relatively silent, continue to be in the hands of criminals. Indeed, the police are concerned that while they take many of the illegal guns from the streets, others come into the country and into the hands of criminals.

It was a point made by Police Commissioner Lucius Thomas when he advised residents of Spanish Town to turn in gunmen and other criminals. We agree with Mr. Thomas and welcome his promise to help residents who have legitimate complaints about police excesses.

We, however, suggest that Mr. Thomas go one step further. Spanish Town remains not only a difficult community to police, but is one where there is deep distrust between residents and the local law enforcement officers. Complaints by the residents about the police are about more than attitude, but about fundamental issues of integrity.

The police chief may, therefore, find it in the interest of his organisation and the community, and Jamaica in general, to withdraw all the police from Spanish Town and then station new ones there.

Sometimes radical action, rather than tinkering at the edges, is necessary. This may be the time when it is.

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