What is it with our politicians today? The minute some of them get into office their brain cells shut down and they become the guy they replaced, the same one they used to beat up on for not doing this, not doing that.

Take Derrick Smith, for example. He, like the rest of us, often beat up on the administration of the People's National Party (PNP) for not being able to bring Jamaica's rampant crime under control.

Now that he is in the hot seat, he finds that he also has no clue over what to do. At least, it sure seems that way. What happened to all the big talk during the campaigning earlier this year?

Now that the shoe is on the other foot, everything changes. "We must not panic," Smith said recently in response to outcry that something be done about the frightening spate of murders occurring in recent weeks.

But where his brain went totally dead was last week when he suggested that there might be political machinations behind the recent spike in the murder rate.

When I read about that, I just shook my head because I was like, 'Okay, here we are one more time with a Minister of National Security, who clearly can't swim now that he has been thrown into the deep end. Barely three months in and he is already drowning.'

We all know that there is no quick fix to the crime situation. The runaway murder figures have more people thinking about fleeing the island to somewhere where they can feel safe. And let me tell you, right now, even Iraq looks like a better option. And while all this is going on, the best salvo the minister can fire is 'don't panic'?

Minister, let me let you in on a little secret: We have gone way past panic! By this time next year many more Jamaicans are going to be working in the U.S., Canada, elsewhere in the Caribbean, perhaps South America; anywhere where they can get away from feeling like the next bullet fired has their name written all over it.

Here is a suggestion though, because oftentimes, we columnists use the space we are afforded to complain but offer no solutions and I am tired of being one of those.

Let's start with regular, un-announced road controls, targeting traffic heading in and out of Kingston, May Pen, and Spanish Town. Check as many vehicles as possible; stop pedestrians, check their bags, their identities. Randomly conduct house-to-house searches in all communities, not just those aligned with the Opposition. Of course, it should be made clear to the security forces that no abuse or overstepping of the boundaries that puts limits on their powers will be tolerated.

We might also want to start making parents responsible for their children at all times; I mean really making them pay hefty fines for their children's indiscretions. We should also start prosecuting the thousands of pedophiles who continue to exploit and impregnate wayward teenage girls. Maybe if we found a way to control the number of fatherless boys out there, we would go some way to curbing the growing numbers of them getting involved in violent crime.

We might also want to start taking a really serious look at corruption within the police force. But we need to do more than just look. We have to find ways of weeding out the criminals there disguised as policemen.

In short, minister, it has to be a multi-pronged approach, one that is augmented by the necessary social programmes geared at saving our frustrated, undereducated, and underappreciated youth.

These are not moves to be made in panic mode. Instead, they are strategies that can be employed that will help reassure the public that something is being done on their behalf and reap some results in the meantime.

It might take a few years and some amount of money, but can you really put a price tag on the value of providing a better future for our kids? I really don't think so.

The honeymoon is over; well, there never really was one. We are in a fight to save our country and right now the bad guys seem to be winning. Here is your opportunity Minister Smith, you can be one of two things. The guy who loses his mind and screams "We're all gonna die!", or the guy who rallies the troops, saves the day and gets the girl in the end.

Who do you choose to be?

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