position, and that bodes well for the future.

Certainly he and Deputy Commissioner George Jackson, come into the limelight with a good deal of goodwill and have both shown a keen awareness of the challenges and opportunities facing the Police.

Colin Coxall and Jean-Jacques Lemay have laid the groundwork for an effective modern Police Service; but Mr. Smith and Mr. Jackson still have a great deal of implementation to do.

Mr. Smith said at his swearing-in, and later at the change of command, that the Police face a number of external and internal pressures.

The external pressures include the need to co-operate with foreign law enforcement bodies such as the US Drug Enforcement Agency and Europe's Interpol and to maintain Bermuda's international reputation as a clean and safe jurisdiction for tourism and business.

It is also likely that the Police, along with the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Attorney General, will be drawn into more and more commercial crime, money laundering, fraud and tax evasion investigations.

How Mr. Smith equips the Service to deal with these kinds of sophisticated crimes will have much to do with how he performs.

The Police also face a good deal of internal pressure, and here Mr. Smith faces some of his greatest challenges.

On the one hand, he will face continuing pressure to crack down on crime and to relieve fear of crime. On the other hand, he will be under equal pressure to continue the conversion of the Police from a Force into a Service, and to show that the Police have a human face.

These are not necessarily mutually exclusive problems. Community policing means having Police on the street in everyday, non-hostile situations, or, to put it another way, it means having Policemen who are of the community, not outside it.

Successful community policing, where crime can be prevented or where it can be quickly and effectively detected, as demonstrated by a couple of recent cases, leads to a safer community for everyone and will add to confidence.

That does not mean that the whole service can be converted to a touchy-freely group of friends in all circumstances. There are violent and dangerous people in the community and there are career criminals, meaning that the Police also have to be tough and assertive, but it is possible for the Police to be both, and for the community to understand when sensitivity is required and when toughness is necessary.

What there is no room for is carelessness or sloppiness. Police failing to respond quickly to calls, failing to appear at trials and failing to see that tickets, charges or evidence are properly handled does more to damage confidence in the Police than anything else.

If Messrs Smith and Jackson can fix those kinds of problems, they will do wonders for public confidence in the Service and the Service's own confidence in itself.