I took some stick from a prominent lawyer last week for criticising Senator David Burch's statement that Police should start taking "appropriately violent action" against criminals.

My criticism was described as a "knee jerk" reaction to score political points and also as "schizophrenic", implying that I was contradicting my party's own get-tough approach to law and order.

There was nothing of the sort.

All of us want the Police to be more effective in the fight against crime, but how we do it and how we go about it matters a great deal.

We simply can't have Government Ministers advocating violence. Period.

Words matter. It is particularly important for Government Ministers to speak with clarity and precision – to "say what you mean and mean what you say".

It is not good enough to have a lawyer excuse the Minister's bad choice of words by stating that "we all knew what he meant."

Did we? Did a schoolboy hearing the Minister advocate violence understand what he meant? Did a frustrated Police officer hearing the Minister urge the kicking down of doors understand what he meant?

Senator Burch, to his credit, recognised he was at fault and apologised for his words.

But let's get back to the situation that prompted his outburst in the first place. Senator Burch was critical of my colleagues and me for taking issue with cutbacks in the Police Budget in the midst of a crime wave. It was the second Budget cut in two years – down more than $9 million in total and in the midst of a prolonged surge in violent crime.

The cutbacks made no sense to us. How can you follow a year in which the incidence of violent crime rose 9.3 percent by cutting back the Serious Crime Unit budget from $2.4 million to $1.5 million?

Government spokesmen say they are doing "more with less", but we are not convinced.

Sen. Burch's rant last week played well across the Island because he gave voice to widespread frustrations that crime is getting the upper hand in our communities. But no one should let him off the hook. He is not an innocent bystander.

The frustration he expressed owes much to his own Government's soft approach to crime fighting and a troubling failure to act. Think of the multi-year failure to reopen the St. George's Police Station when the Old Town was in the grip of its own crime wave.

Think of the multi-year failure to get Police manpower up to strength. And think of this startling fact: Crime has risen 135 percent in the past seven years under the PLP Government.

The time has come for strong and direct action to get a grip on crime. Last week my colleague, Senator Michael Dunkley, called for a formal review of the Police Service. A review is long overdue. The prolonged surge in crime raises questions about whether current strategies and deployments are the right ones.

In going forward, the United Bermuda Party would like to see a strong emphasis on community policing. We want to see officers on the beat in every parish, every night and day.

We want to see them in bars and at football games, gathering grassroots knowledge and understanding, getting to know people and what's going on. It's not happening now and it should be. Being in contact with people is crime prevention.

Community beat officers should be backed up with technology such as cameras on cars and GPS, even for officers on foot patrol. In certain areas, they may need to be armed.

It is also important to do what we can to get the community to see the work of the Police in the right light. Yes, it's about enforcement but it's also about partnership.

On that point, I would like to see our Police operating under the banner "To serve and protect", which is used in some North American cities.

No slogan I've come across better captures their noble calling.

It certainly beats the slogan floated last week: "To serve and be appropriately violent."

By Mark Pettingill, JP, MP, United Bermuda

Party Shadow Minister for Justice