We are not, however, so accustomed to the reverse, as appears to be happening with criminals, if Deputy Commissioner of Police Owen Ellington's analysis of the latest comprehensive crime statistics is accepted as sound.

As was reported in yesterday's Gleaner, at the Police High Command's quarterly press conference on Thursday, DCP Ellington attributed the fall in major crime in the Kingston Metropolitan Region and a concurrent increase in rural areas to two things.

These are a complete relocation of some criminals and a higher level of networking among others.

Interestingly, DCP Ellington did not identify reasons why some criminals have left 'town' for 'country'. We would hope, though, that it is attributable to law-enforcement efforts and not simply the miscreants moving on to greener (literally and figuratively) pastures. We hope that it is the former.

Whatever the reason for the dangerous shift in pattern, it seems to us that this is one instance where the metropolitan hub cannot be taken to represent the entire country. In this case, it is the 'country', as we so often casually dismiss our rural areas, which represents the entire country which we need to protect.

Community weaknesses

However, it is not simply a case of assigning more police personnel into areas as porous as limestone. Intelligence is called for and, in this regard, the police can utilise the same community weaknesses that the criminals have been exploiting to very bad effect.

For we suspect that whereas many rural communities were once close-knit micro-societies in which most people knew each other not only by name, but also family history, the protective wall of 'everybody knows everybody' has cracked. Without telling the police how to do their job, police personnel should be able to become part of especially larger rural communities and gather vital information just by keeping their eyes and ears open.

It is important that we keep the 'country' safe not because the rural areas are more important that 'town' or we have given up on the cities, but we cannot afford to allow rampant criminality to spread across the island. Not that we wish to contain it in the urbanised areas, but even in the most crime-prone sections of the cities there are areas which are considered safe, if not inviolate.

The physical damage is one thing, but the blow to the psyche when the untoward happens in an unexpected, unusual and even previously undisturbed area saps the energy and the will.

So to protect our sense of hope in Jamaica, let us work towards returning the areas once considered safe to actually being so. If we manage to keep the 'country' relatively safe, there is a smidgen of hope that we can make some progress towards same in the country.

The opinions on this page, except for the above, do not necessarily reflect the views of The Gleaner. To respond to a Gleaner editorial, email us: editor@gleanerjm.com or fax: 922-6223. Responses should be no longer than 400 words. Not all responses will be published.