In the hurly-burly of Jamaican life, there is one thing that you can expect to be constant: The rolling out every six months or so of a new anti-crime initiative.

So, last week, we had the latest of these, the first under the Golding administration, which took office last September. It is in response to the latest upsurge of violent crime, and criminality generally, which leaves Jamaica near the top of the global league table for homicides. Indeed, there have been over 500 homicides here already this year, and that excludes the killing by the police of alleged criminals in gunfights.

Always, we invest hope in the latest initiative, that somehow, this time, things will be different; that the crime plan will work. The political administration is at it again, although we are unsure of the efficacy of the project.

What is on offer now is that Operation Kingfish, which is headed by Assistant Police Commissioner Glenmore Hinds, will take over the investigation of murders in the parish of Clarendon, which has emerged as a hot spot for killings.

In the Corporate Area of Kingston and St Andrew, Assistant Commissioner Les Green, one of the imports from Britain, who heads the Major Investigation Task Force, will investigate all firearm-related murders. There will be zero tolerance of petty crimes, as well as other bits and pieces of strategy.

A sense of déjà vu

Of course, it is not our intention to be cynical, for, as we have already indicated, like all well-thinking Jamaicans, we desperately want this effort to work. We will be forgiven, however, for observing that while the code names and personalities have changed, this latest initiative sounds suspiciously like the others we have had for the past 30 years. It is more like a blur, or the merging of one image into another, rather than a sense of déjà vu.

But of more concern than that - this may be a rehash of old plans under a new police chief - there is unease about how the initiative appears to have developed - which is the norm with these projects. In the face of the upsurge of crime, Prime Minister Golding called together the heads of the security forces and their top assistants for a meeting, from which they emerged with a new plan.

We would feel better if these were the considered ideas of the professional crime fighters and strategic thinkers, who, underpaid though they may be, actually get salaries to work through these things. If that was the process, we would expect and have greater confidence that there would be coherence and cogency to the strategy. The ideas would not flow only from the top, but strategies would be developed in conjunction with commanders on the ground.

But take the plan for Kingfish - a task force that was set up mainly to target drug smugglers and gangs - assuming responsibility for investigating murders in Clarendon. It appears that the head of the Clarendon Police Division, Superintendent Radcliffe Brown, was not part of the development of the strategy and was told afterwards.

More than a year ago, there was the idea for a detectives' unit in the police force that would be reorganised and strengthened to better investigate murders and other crimes. That made sense. Now Les Green's unit seems to have been given the job.

What of coherence and cogency?

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