groups of youths who have been fighting each other around the Island is wise or not.

Commissioner Jean-Jacques Lemay has said that a pro-active approach and efforts to persuade them to cease and desist is preferable to crackdowns every few weeks.

That may be so, but it is a risky path to take because it legitimises these groups, many of whose members are in their mid-teens, giving them a stature they have neither earned nor deserve.

Yet by holding secret talks with them, the Police run the risk of turning them into gangs who may feel they have the right to hold the Country to ransom for what they want, on the dubious promise that they won't cause problems.

What is not at all certain is whether these groups are highly structured gangs with legitimate complaints about society or ramshackle groups of youths who come together to cause mischief and break laws.

From what this newspaper understands, not all of the groups were represented at the meeting, and any "peace agreements'' cannot come until all the groups are brought together.

Any final judgment on Tuesday's meeting will have to wait until these supposed leaders have returned to their groups to spread the word and for any more meetings where these groups are better represented.

Mr. Lemay deserves credit for at least thinking outside the box and attempting some different means for preventing crime. But Bermuda will have to hope for the best and prepare for the worst in the meantime.

REFERENDUM EDT Referendum There has been a considerable amount of debate about the changes proposed by Premier Jennifer Smith on the Constitution.

Some compelling arguments have been made by ex-politicians such as Sir John Plowman and Quinton Edness in addition to the current Members of the Opposition for a Constitutional conference, although the Government has been reticent on the point with the exception of Renee Webb who sees it as a waste of time and money.

Ms Webb is wrong. The Constitutional changes being proposed by the Premier are the most far-reaching since 1968 and deserve wide debate.

Indeed, there is a strong argument to be made that these changes should be subject to a referendum of the public, who are politically mature enough to have a say in this decision.

After all this will dramatically change the way Bermudians are represented, so why shouldn't they have a say in it? It should be noted that Australia had a referendum on whether to become a republic and Barbados is planning one on the same issue and these changes will have a greater effect on Bermudians than becoming a republic would have done on either Australia or Barbados.

It can be argued that Bermudians voted for this change when they elected the Progressive Labour Party to government. But the campaign promise was as vague as Ms Smith's Green Paper, promising single seat constituencies and fewer seats in the House of Assembly.

Bermudian voters deserve to have a say on how many MPs they think they should be represented by.