The Police Officers Association (POA), which represents the officer corps of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF), believes the move should be supported.

"Whatever an individual or a group thinks will work, we should give them our support because that doesn't impact on law enforce-ment," Superintendent Michael James, head of the POA, told The Gleaner yesterday. "We recognise the right of that individual or that group to reduce crime and, whatever action they might take, it does not militate against what the constabulary does."

This plan proposed by the NTP is the latest in a series of initiatives designed to tackle the island's soaring crime rate, which has resulted in the murders of almost 1,600 people this year.

The programme, which goes under the moniker 'A Fresh Start for Jamaica', is a partnership of Church, State, business and civil society.

While details of the NTP are still emerging, it has not been made clear what role the police would be playing in the latest assault on crime.

More time

Karl Angell, communications director for the JCF, declined to give a comment on the new programme. Likewise, the Police Federation wants more time to deliberate over the matter before giving its reaction to the programme.

Corporal Raymond Wilson, head of the federation, said he would have to meet with his group's committee before making a definitive statement.

A significant thrust of the programme, which works out of the Office of the Prime Minister, will be to engage community leaders, often referred to as 'dons', across the island to garner their support for the programme and an end to the violence.

James, however, does not believe that the engagement of dons will help in disarmament or weaning communities of dependence on gangs.

"I don't think that this will run counter to what we do, because the intelligence that the constabulary gathers on dons, as soon as we have sufficient evidence to bring them before a tribunal, we will. We are going to do what we have to irrespective of what other groups are doing," he concluded.