Two months and one day before the Wellington Oval attacks, ran an article entitled ??Horton to meet US Consul General over controversial website on Island?. What was the controversy? Public Safety Minister Horton was taking issue with a US State Department website which described Bermuda as having a growing crime rate. The Minister wasn?t taking issue with the facts, but the ?tone and emphasis? of the report.

Therein lies the problem.

Too many of us, for too long, have treated our rising crime problem as something that should be addressed through a different ?tone and emphasis?, preferring to put our heads in the sand than develop a comprehensive plan of attack.

In fact, the Government seems decidedly schizophrenic when it comes to crime. Minister Randy Horton regretted ?the fact that Bermuda?s unacceptably high crime rates warrant inclusion in the travel advisory. We as a community must work together to eradicate this problem.? Fair enough, I thought, Cabinet is treating this problem with the urgency it deserves. Then to my dismay, Tourism Minister Renee Webb was quoted blaming ?the way the media, in particular , reports crime?. Care to revise your statement Ms Webb?

If our Government leaders didn?t want to acknowledge that we have a crime problem two months ago, I?d bet a Pro-Active construction bond that they do now. Not only is the frequency of crime a problem, but the severity has escalated beyond anything we expected to witness in Bermuda.

I certainly don?t have all the answers but there?s a few simple steps that each of us can take to put us on the path to achieving results.

We must acknowledge that Bermuda has a serious crime problem. Referring to the problem as ?youth violence? is counter-productive. Bermuda doesn?t have a youth violence problem, we have a violence problem. The ages of the four people who recently appeared in court for the Wellington Oval incident were 21, 25, 26 and 27! Those are men and not boys. Continuing to use the term ?youth? is an attempt to downplay the seriousness of the problem. That?s akin to saying ?boys will be boys? and dismisses violent behaviour as nothing more than a youthful indiscretion. I cannot think of a worse way to characterise the problem.

Stop denying that gangs exist in Bermuda. Once ?Town and Country? stopped invoking the image of a carpet cleaning company, I knew that things were out of control. We must accept that something exists before we can start working on it.

Our parents and community leaders must send a consistent message that our laws are to be respected if we expect our children to become productive adults. For years we?ve let our standards slide, tolerating ?minor? offences and excusing anti-social behaviour. We?re teaching our children that laws don?t matter and actions have no consequences. This problem exists at all levels of our society. Potentially criminal behaviour at the Berkeley construction project and BHC were denied, excused and then obstructed by those we?ve charged with creating our laws!

We must enforce the ?minor? victimless crimes. Our roads have become a race track. Rampant cycle theft is accepted as a way of life. Stop signs long ago ceased meaning stop.

We?re an Island of double-parkers. ?No Parking? signs or ?No Entry? signs in our parks and on our roads are routinely ignored. If we don?t respect our rules and laws we shouldn?t feign outrage when the children we raise no longer respect them either.

One approach we should consider is New York City?s ?broken window? style of policing. Former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and his methods were not without their critics, but he stated that ??murder and graffiti are two vastly different crimes. But they are part of the same continuum, and a climate that tolerates one is more likely to tolerate the other.? We?d do well to take that quote to heart.

Our roads, bus shelters and sidewalks are littered with the remains of stolen motorcycles, household garbage and graffiti tributes to victims of violent crime.

That?s as good a place to start as any.