This newspaper has been critical of the slow response by the authorities to the recent wave of violent crime.

Fortunately, that response now seems to be ramping up and the Governor, Government and Bermuda Police Service deserve credit for that.

The bladed weapons amnesty is the latest example of this, and should be welcomed. If nothing else, it should draw attention to the startling rise in offences involving knives, some of which have led to deaths.

The police have also been continuing Operation Sentinel, which has led to more than 120 arrests of gang members since September and the seizure of four guns.

And the police are also getting help, through financial assistance from Britain, with the imminent arrival of nine officers including four serious crime investigators.

The island also appears to be finally getting desperately needed CCTV cameras, which will help to deter crime and will also lead to arrests and convictions. There have also been increased patrols in North Hamilton, where most of the recent serious crimes have been committed.

Darren Simons, the Commissioner of Police, revealed these accomplishments at a town hall meeting on violent crime in the West End last week.

Mr Simons noted the irony that while the island is rightly concerned about the spike in violent crime, total crime has declined over the past decade, with a significant drop in theft and burglaries.

To that end, he plans to change the way crime is measured, with more serious crimes being more heavily weighted. The risk that some crimes are simply no longer reported cannot be discounted, either, and is something Mr Simons should examine.

That progress is being made is welcome, but it must be continued and sustained. Operations such as Sentinel and an increased police presence in North Hamilton — for which some officers are receiving overtime payments — can be highly effective, but lose their value if nothing more is done when they stop, as they will at some point.

To that end, Mr Simons’s plans to add more full-time officers and to bring in officers from Caribbean jurisdictions are critical, so pressure on the gangs can be maintained by the police.

However, as acknowledged by both Michael Weeks, the national security minister, and Andrew Murdoch, the Governor, Bermuda cannot arrest its way out of the crisis — we must deal with the conditions and causes of violent crime.

The West End town hall meeting produced many solutions, predictably extending from harsher punishments at one extreme to detailed discussions about generational trauma, homelessness and other social problems.

Ultimately, it’s a political decision over what direction to take.

In fact, the Government is already looking at reducing the sizes of juries and passing tougher anti-crime laws. Some of those measures are controversial; one of the Government’s consultations under way at present is a provision for having trials by judge where there is a genuine risk of jury tampering in high-profile cases.

Mr Murdoch noted that the community may be presented with the choice of tougher laws aimed at deterring and punishing offenders, but surrendering some rights at the same time. One example of this is the stop-and-search law, which has produced good results. However, there are dangers in the use of laws such as this, notably with racial profiling and perceptions of harassment.

It is true that young men — and the vast majority of those involved in gangs are young and male — are less likely to join gangs or commit crimes if they are successful in school or can see a clear career path.

Many of the possible answers to this are contained in the comprehensive gang violence reduction strategy unveiled last year. If all of the funding and resources the plan calls for were implemented, it is difficult to see how it could not achieve some success.

But there is a danger in the report of allowing the perfect to be the enemy of the good. If Bermuda has to wait for all elements of the plan to be ready and be launched, it may be waiting a long time. Some elements are also woolly and raise issues that are difficult to define and therefore to solve.

To be fair, some of the plan’s initiatives are already in place, including some of the police programmes. But an approach which attempted to target the crisis segments of gangs now, rather than waiting for all elements of the programme to be funded is needed.

Education invariably plays a part in preventing violence, but the report also notes that gang membership and formation often starts in school, especially in the senior schools. This is where efforts need to start to steer the next generation away from gangs.