ANOTHER day, another murder. And then prayers, for a little boy who was doing nothing wrong in the world but who was shot in the head by a coward of a man who opened fire on three women and a child.

This has been an extraordinarily deadly start to the year. How deadly? A Tribune reporter started counting back, year after year, and as far back as 2014 it appears there has not been a deadlier start to the year.

Add that to two years in a row where the Police Commissioner said the murder tally would be less than 100, both years missed, and there is no sense that crime is under control.

Yesterday saw the gun turned on women in particular. Not just the shoot-ing that saw a grandmother killed and a two-year-old left fighting for life, but another shooting earlier that saw two women treated in hospital after a man fired at them in their car.

We talk about tackling crime, about steering people away from conflict – who is going to reach these, the lowest of the low, the men who turn a gun on women?

The government talks about a whole government approach to tackling crime, a plan – but when will we see it have an effect?

The plan sounds so vague that it makes one wonder if there really is a plan, or simply rhetoric because some-thing needs to be said in the face of this wave of killings.

The numbers could have been higher still – there have been other shootings that our medics have been called upon to save people’s lives from. Then there is the body that was found floating at Pot-ter’s Cay dock – we do not know yet the cause of death in that case.

The Commissioner came out the other day spitting fire about the bail system and wanting to know why we are releasing people after three or four months on bail as they wait for their case to be heard. He did not specify how long he thinks it would be appropriate for someone to be held in prison without a conviction.

Yesterday, senior figures in the justice system defended the bail system. Argue about who is right and who is wrong by all means – but it certainly seems that any suggestion by the Commissioner of alterations to the granting of bail as a solution are a long, long way from happening.

Chief Justice Winder very pointedly contradicted the Commissioner’s com-ments about granting of bail, saying: “Contrary to the opinion of some, the law does not prescribe a two-year requirement before an accused can be admitted to bail for the offence of murder.”

More notably, he added: “A charge is not a conviction. The fact that the police have alleged that you have committed an offence does not automatically sus-pend your constitutional rights for two years.”

So what is the plan? Not one that involves pointing and blaming the judi-ciary. What is the actual plan that will seek to bring down the levels of violent crime affecting our country?

What can we do that will stop those cowardly men who shoot at women and children? What is the step that will turn people away from crime? How do we stop the virus of violence that is depriv-ing our nation of too many of its young men particularly as they are gunned down one by one?

There is a national day of prayer to be held – but will those prayers reach the ears of those who have commit-ted such crimes as spraying the front of a house with bullets and killing a teenage girl inside who was doing nothing more than charging a mobile device?

Will they reach the hearts of the gang members, the killers, the robbers, the drug dealers, the thieves, the many more who are dragging our nation down?

It is time for plain talking. Not catch-phrases. Not slogans. Tell us the plan. Then act on it.