Crime statistics are notoriously difficult to interpret, or alternatively, notoriously easy to put whatever spin you want on them.

Unlike, say, tourism statistics, which are seasonal, it's hard to know whether to compare crime statistics from one quarter to another or year over year. And the multiplicity of offences, from the most serious to the relatively benign, also make interpretation hard.

Perhaps the best thing to do is to try to follow the trend over a 12-month or longer period. This should erase anomalies such as when a habitual housebreaker is released from prison and goes on a burglary spree and thus skews statistics.

The Police have opted for this approach, and on that basis try to follow the crime trend over a five-year period. On that basis, although overall crime was up over last year in the third quarter, the overall trend is downward. In part the spike in crime this year is because crime was at its lowest level in five years in the second quarter of 2009.

Many people will be confused by this, because despite the statistics, it feels like Bermuda is in the grip of its worst crime wave ever. That's because the most serious crimes, especially those involving guns, are indeed at record highs. But it is a fact that other forms of crime are much lower. This should not negate the gravity of gun crimes or the record murder rate, which is often the measure used to compare crime between different cities and places.

But the other statistics do not lie, and the two apparently contradictory sets of statistics may be linked. That's because the Police have become much more aggressive in the last 18 months as they try to get to grips with gun crime. That means that more people are being arrested for warrants and on stop and searches, and are being held in custody. That in turn may mean less criminal activity, simply because those most likely to commit it are in custody or are being closely watched.

To some degree, these are the tactics that New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani and his Police Commissioner William Bratton employed to bring crime down in that city and that Mr. Bratton used with similar success in Los Angeles. By arresting and jailing people for relatively minor offences, they found they were also detecting and preventing more serious crimes.

If that is indeed what is happening in Bermuda, then the only part it fails to explain is why the most serious crimes continue to surge. In part the answer to that is that these crimes are gang-related and are generally concentrated within a fairly small area. Another possibility is that these crimes are unrelated to general crime trends, given that they often seem to be fuelled by personal animosities or turf fights.

That they are serious is indisputable. Regardless of the direction of crime overall, they are the high profile crimes that set perceptions. And most importantly, people are dying. There is one other possibility, and that is that while the five year crime trend is still pointing down, it is possible that this year marks the beginning of the reversal of that trend.

This would seem logical as the economy deteriorates and people have trouble making ends meet. If that's the case, then it is critical that the Police, Government and the community redouble their efforts to stop crime and the conditions that lead to it.