Bermuda was rocked this week by the latest incident of violent crime - the murder of school custodian Josh Smith.

This has been accompanied by a growing revulsion towards these kinds of brutal acts which seem to be mounting.

The reason for the use of the word "seem" is deliberate, because there is a disconnect between the official statistics - which show that violent crime has actually declined, although most other forms of crime are up - and the public perception, which is that violent crime is getting worse.

In this case, perception may be reality. The public is increasingly seized by the feeling that people are under threat in their own homes and as they go about their day to day business.

That is partly due to the fact that some of the most recent crimes have been both random and vicious. The murder of Mr. Smith seems to have had no cause as he was by all accounts a popular and unassuming man. The attack on Josie Ray after she had gone to collect her mail was equally random.

The other side of the coin was the recent shooting which seemed to be directed at Jahnae Bean after he was acquitted of the murder of Tekle Mallory. This seemed to be a case of vigilantes taking the law into their own hands. All of these attacks are symptomatic of growing lawlessness that the authorities seem to be powerless to stop.

The Police do deserve credit for making arrests rapidly in most cases. This reflects well on the Service's ability to focus large number of officers on major incidents and to have enough street knowledge to identify suspects quickly.

But it can also be argued that, as in the Middleton case, charges are then brought too fast and often before all of the forensic evidence is gathered and analysed, resulting in cases coming unstuck once they go to trial.

These acquittals, rightly, do raise public doubt about the ability of the Police and the Department of Public Prosecutions to see cases through to conviction. In defence of the DPP, some people have repeated the mantra "the Police investigate and the DPP prosecutes" which may have some validity but also creates the image of bewigged prosecutors being handed their briefs by Policemen as they enter the Supreme Court. That may be unfair, but the sense that the two services operate in separate worlds has some validity. Instead of indulging in a blame game, they need to work closely together on cases from much earlier on than now appears to be the case.

Then too, Police and prosecutors are hampered by outdated laws and procedures. Only now are taped interviews going to be introduced, years after a strong case was made for them. And just yesterday, the Police Evidence Act, which takes up many of the recommendations from the Serious Crime Commission, was tabled in the House of Assembly.

The Government seems to be divided on the issue of law and order. There is no question that past and present Home Affairs Ministers Paula Cox and Terry Lister were and are anxious to give the Police the tools to do their jobs properly. But Attorney General Dame Lois Browne Evans' fierce opposition to modifying the double jeopardy rule and her own admission that she remains a defence lawyer at heart sends another message to a seriously worried public - that this Government does not have stopping crime as a top priority.