The recent spate of violent crime should be of grave concern to the community, especially as it comes on the heels of the news that violent crime in the last three months of 2006 spiked in spite of a decline in the overall crime rate.

This newsroom is now receiving almost daily Police reports of muggings and attacks in the street. These range from attacks on security guards to knifings to muggings, including one in which the victim was not only robbed of his money, but was stripped down to his underwear as well.

It is not entirely clear what has caused this recent upsurge in crime although it is reasonable to assume that drugs are involved. What is certain is that it is causing fear and unrest in the streets and has serious ramifications for the community.

At the risk of stating the obvious, one of the fundamental responsibilities of any government is to give its citizens a sense of security. When people are afraid to leave their homes, then the government is failing in that basic responsibility.

This is not good enough. Bermuda?s citizens deserve better. The economy ? including all the good work Premier Dr. Ewart Brown and others have done in tourism ? will be endangered, and with it, people?s economic security will be as well.

Now is the time for those in positions of responsibility to step up and get to grips with the situation ? before it gets any worse.

A good deal has been written in recent days about the experimental long-line fishing project being undertaken off the Island by the US fishing boat .

Long-line fishing, in which fishing boats trawl using long fishing lines with hundreds of hooks, has sparked a good deal of controversy around the world, not least because of the problems of ?by-catch?, especially of turtles, but also of seabirds.

The Environment Ministry has now answered a good many of those concerns, noting that the boat used weighted lines which reduces the risk to sea birds, and that this particular vessel has pioneered techniques to save turtles that are caught. A quick Internet search confirms the findings, and also shows that has been at the forefront of partnerships between fishermen and environmentalists to ensure that there are no side effects to commercial offshore fishing and that such fisheries are sustainable.

The latter point is particularly important. Bermuda rightly blazed an environmental trail when it banned fish pots in the early 1990s when inshore fish stocks were in severe danger. But this decision also hurt local fishermen and if a viable alternative, such as offshore fishing can be found, then that is all to the good.

What has to be done, though, is to make sure that such a fishery does no harm and is sustainable. Catches must be closely monitored with limits set, and the number of licences issued must be carefully controlled so that the fishery is self-sustaining. If those things can be done, and if it can be done in such a way that Bermudian fishermen have decent livelihoods, then that is all to the good.