We hope that Derrick Smith, the Opposition spokesman on national security, is not merely playing to the gallery, saying what he believes to be popular.

For there is almost certain to be a chorus of support for declarations about hanging convicted murderers, locking up people who break the law and the need to throw money at the country's problem of too high crime. Mr. Smith said it all in Montego Bay last Thursday night.

What Mr. Smith and the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) have not done recently is to provide us a context within which they will do these things. Nor have we heard from Mr. Smith how his populist pronouncements will fit within the broader policy framework previously enunciated by his party.

Of course, Jamaicans are very concerned about the rate of homicides in the country and that nearly 150 people were murdered in January; a rate which, if it continues, will reverse last year's 23 per cent decline in the number of killings. And even if the January numbers are reversed and the police can meet, and even surpass their target of a seven per cent reduction in murders in 2007, the total number of homicides will still be over 1,000. In the event, the fear of crime will remain high.

These problems are not new; we have grappled with them for a long time without effective solutions. However, we have begun in recent times to feel that there have been new, thoughtful approaches to the matter from the Government and Opposition.

We sense from Mr. Smith's speech, however, that in this pre-election season he sees an opportunity for easy advantage without the need for rigour. So, Mr. Smith promises harsher penalties for repeat offenders, who, he suggests, will be sent away for long terms. That is all well and good, except that there has to be a place to incarcerate these offenders, which, given the already old and bursting prisons, will require the building of new institutions. If this is to be the strategy, we would like to hear an assessment of the numbers Mr. Smith expects to be in prison; how much new space will have to be built; how it will be financed; and how long after he becomes minister the policy will be effected.

Moreover, as Mr. Smith would be aware, before prisoners are incarcerated, they have first to be caught and then convicted of the crime they have been accused of committing. At least, he appeared to have been serious with his assessment of a need for $6 billion to equip the police and that a JLP government would make this a priority in its first budget year.

But then Mr. Smith waved the hanging flag, and blamed the failure of this administration to carry out the death penalty in the past 17 years to cowardice on the part of his opponents. It is true that the law for capital punishment remains on the books, and maybe Mr. Smith is right that the administration makes too much of the legal constraints to carrying out executions. But this is not an issue that should be the basis of a populist rave; it is one worthy of thoughtful debate.

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