The new police chief, Rear Admiral Hardley Lewin, does not expect, we assume, that the zero-tolerance initiatives he announced at his press conference on Wednesday will translate either to an immediate or major reduction in serious crime.

We, nonetheless, support the ideas he has put forward, believing that they will help to establish the psychological environment for a fuller assault on general criminality, and criminal violence in particular. However, Admiral Lewin will be aware that many people will be sceptical of his pronouncement, having heard this all before from his three immediate predecessors, but seeing little action.

What Admiral Lewin promised was a crackdown on road-traffic offences, as well as strict enforcement of the anti-litter and night-noise laws. There will be complaints that the police commissioner will be concentrating resources on what many Jamaicans consider to be relatively petty issues, given the scale of violent crime in Jamaica. For, despite a 12 per cent reduction in murders during January, compared to the same period last year, there were still 113 murders with nearly a week in January still to go. In all of 2007, there were just under 1,600 reported homicides, giving Jamaica a murder rate of roughly 60 per 100,000, which placed it near the very top of the global, league table.

In the circumstances, there will be the reasonable argument that fighting violent crime should be the commissioner's priority. We agree. But we also believe that initiatives such as those announced by Admiral Lewin are part of the process.

First, zero-tolerance enforcement of these rules will help to instil in public consciousness the notion that basic law and order exists in Jamaica, thereby insisting on a new and different relationship with the public space. In an atmosphere of social order, inclusive of a clean environment, people are likely to feel better about themselves and their communities and less likely to engage in antisocial behaviour.

In this regard, the police chief's law-and-order strategy cannot be allowed to stand on its own, but has to be reinforced by some other basic social interventions - cheap ones, at that.

For instance, Tourism Minister Ed Bartlett's clean-up campaign, which appears to have been concentrated in tourist resort towns, has to be aggressively expanded to the entire country. Particularly in inner-city communities, we have to do a far better job of removing garbage, cleaning drains, trimming verges and patching potholes; not as one-off ventures, but on an ongoing basis. It is a way to make people begin to feel a sense of worth in their surroundings.

Such projects are affordable. Staff to maintain them are mainly on minimum wage, the cost of which can be easily met by substituting some of the far more expensive labour in the overblown and largely unproductive public sector.

The proposal to explore the use of non-lethal weaponry by the constabulary to subdue potential attackers is another move in the right direction, given the public perception that Jamaica's police rely far too heavily on deadly force. The level of police homicide, averaging over 200 per year, is indeed worrying. Bringing this number down substantially can only help in building trust in the constabulary.