We admire the community activism of Montego Bay businessman Mark Kerr-Jarrett and his constant search for the kinds of interventions that will bring prosperity to Jamaicans and help produce an environment that is less amenable to the crime and criminal violence.

Just recently, for instance, Mr. Kerr-Jarrett was pointing to the rapid development of tourism in western Jamaica and how a failure of the social infrastructure to keep pace with this expansion has contributed to the creation of dysfunctional communities. Lack of housing for tourism workers, for example, led to crude squatter settlements, which became centres of anti-social behaviour and havens for criminals.

Mr. Kerr-Jarrett suggested massive government spending on housing to address the current problems and to head-off its worsening in the face of a new wave of tourism investment.

This week the businessman has placed on the table the idea of strengthening Jamaica's legal codes to enhance the capacity of the authorities to investigate crimes and convict wrongdoers. There is nothing, by and large, wrong with such ideals, except that we would prefer to see further and better particulars to satisfy ourselves that the kind of things Mr. Kerr-Jarrett would have the society do, in this area, would not diminish freedoms and undermine the rights of the individual.

We raise this proviso, being aware that in the face of crisis and out of fear, societies sometimes are led to extremes that cede authority to those who would be authoritarian. Moreover, the matters on which Mr. Kerr-Jarrett has offered some specifics should cause right thinking Jamaicans concern. Or, at the very least, would demand vigorous and level-headed debate before any thought of legislation and implementation.

Among other things he has proposed, is a national registration, which, we suppose, would mean that every person in Jamaica would have to be registered from birth. There would be biometric information on every Jamaican, starting with finger and palm-prints.

But Mr. Kerr-Jarrett seems to go further. He would want DNA samples taken from Jamaicans at birth, to become part of a permanent database. He suggests that such databases exist in other countries.

"From this, a database of human signatures is developed that can be used in identifying fingerprints at crime scenes," Mr. Kerr-Jarrett said in a speech. "This can help in the capture and conviction rate."

We, like Mr. Kerr-Jarrett, are concerned about the low rates of crime detection and conviction in Jamaica and believe that improvement in these areas provides the best deterrent to crime. But, while we take his word for it that the measures he proposes are in place in other countries, we find them utterly invasive and frightening.

With the DNA information of every Jamaican on file, capable of being accessed by the State and its nominees, it would be the end of privacy - way beyond the levels now caused by existing in this post-industrial, technological environment. Some technocrat would be able to determine, perhaps long before we were aware and displayed any symptoms, the types of illnesses from which we were likely to suffer.

On application for a job, some bureaucrat might pull up the applicant's DNA file to determine his/her physical 'suitability' for the job and the 'traits' that were likely to be brought to the position - and worse.

Oh, Big Brother! Shades of Orwell's totalitarian '1984'.