THERE IS a tendency among Caribbean leaders to follow a potentially good initiative with something that will undermine its efficacy. It is as if they were consumed by woolly ideas, at the expense of solutions that are clear and practical.

We had hoped that Bruce Golding, prime minister of Jamaica, had escaped this affliction, ready to get to the nuts and bolts of the country's problems. And so it seemed, with regard to the PM's agreement for Jamaica to join its Caribbean Community (CARICOM) partners to establish a special team of regional investigators for member states to call on to help in "difficult and protracted negotiations".

Indeed, there were other useful ideas from the special summit on crime, last week, that suggest that CARICOM was moving closer to the supranational security and crime-fighting mechanism that this newspaper has promoted.

But then, Mr Golding gave expression to his woolly idea. He went and told the Caribbean Media Corporation, as was reported by this newspaper on Monday, that he would like another "serious study" of the causes of crime in Jamaica, and for good measure, in Trinidad and Tobago. These are the two countries with the highest levels of crime, particularly homicides, in CARICOM, and Mr Golding wants to be told the difference behind anti-social behaviour in the two states.

Said Mr Golding, "We need to determine what are the similarities, what are the differences, what are the commonalties and the approach, therefore, to take. And it is something I intend to speak with Prime Minister (Patrick) Manning about." That delivery was woolly as the idea itself.

The point is that Jamaica does not need another study to determine the causes of crime in the country. Indeed, this is a problem that has been well thrashed out and fully ventilated.

Should Mr Golding not believe us, he needs only ask persons like Dr Anthony Harriott and Dr Bernard Headley at the Mona campus of the University of the West Indies, who did their own research on the subject. Or, the prime minister might ask his national security minister to produce for his perusal the many internal analyses commissioned by that ministry on the issue. He might even hearken back to the MacMillan Committee he set up while still in Opposition to produce a crime-fighting plan. They reviewed many of the studies on the causes of crime. There has also been much work done on the issue in Trinidad and Tobago, as he might have learned in his planned talk with Mr Manning.

What Jamaica and the Caribbean need, as with so many other things, is not more studies and analyses on the causes and effects of crime, but a nuts-and-bolts approach to solutions. Talk and study less and more action.

Fixing the police force at home, as Mr Golding has pointed out, is a good place to start. And it would not be bad for the Regional Investigative Management Team and many other initiatives proposed by the CARICOM leaders to follow close behind. The regional team will be useful to Jamaica in a very practical way - helping to build public trust that is lacking in a constabulary that is deemed corrupt.

It would be a major help, too, if Mr Golding would implement policies to help the economy to grow.