Yesterday's joint announcement by Governor Sir Richard Gozney and Premier Dr. Ewart Brown that they are working closely together on crime will be welcomed by the community.

Far too much time and effort has been spent on arguments over who should have operational control of the Police. Now, it is to be hoped the Governor, the Police and the Government can work together to put an end to the madness. It seems clear that a compromise of sorts has been reached. The Police have dropped their apparent objections to the use of overseas officers from the US and the UK, and it would appear that Government, while still advocating operational control, will not press the issue.

And last week's soap opera, when a similar joint statement to yesterday's was released, only to be followed by a statement by the Premier himself which seemed to contradict everything he had just said, now seems to be over. Part of the reason for this seems to be that the public has gotten ahead of the politicians in tackling violent crime. While the Island's leaders give the impression of squabbling, groups like Rise Above, Bermuda and youth groups have been getting to grips with the problem.

So, to some degree, the Island's leaders have been embarrassed into action.

To be fair, this is not entirely accurate. Politicians have been working fairly hard on coming up with solutions to the problem.

Opposition politicians and backbenchers have spoken out and proposed solutions. Public Safety Minister Sen. David Burch, who has been notably silent recently on the operational control question, has been demonstrably supportive of the Police.

One thing that has not come to pass is the prediction that anti-gang legislation would be tabled in the House of Assembly before Christmas. That's not a bad thing. It might well do more harm than good and does not get to the real reasons why young people join gangs and commit violent crimes.

Instead, We will Rise Above, Bermuda's proposal for a gang truce, and Nation of Islam Leader Minister Louis Farrakhan's proposal for a gang summit floated in the summer are worth trying first.

A summit was tried once before when Jean-Jacque Lemay was Commissioner of Police and made some progress before fizzling out.

But it is a political hard sell, and it must be absolutely clear that any such truce or summit does not carry with it the idea that previous law breaking is condoned. But the fact is that Bermuda needs to break the cycle of violence and to offer gang members and violent criminals an alternative to prison or death.

What is needed now is for the Government, Governor, Police and grassroots groups to come together to formulate a strategy to end violent crime. Yesterday's news that the Government seems to be dropping its call for operational control is a start. Now the whole community needs to come together.