This comes in the wake of recently publicised violent incidents in the West End involving Policemen, visitors and members of the public.

During interviews with The Royal Gazette , one woman who has lived in Somerset for the past five years and did not want to be identified, said she was angry when she heard of the attack on the Policemen.

"It really hit close to home,'' she said."Some of my close family members are Policemen. I think it all comes down to drugs.

"What we need is a return to the days when Policemen got out of their cars and walked the beat in the neighbourhoods like they used to. That's the only way we can feel safe here.'' Her sentiments were echoed by taxi driver Mr. Edwin Bashir, who said harsher punishments were needed to deal with offenders.

"It's a shame when women and children don't feel safe in their own homes,'' he said."Things are pretty bad right now with the drugs and the attitudes of some of these young men. Not even the Police are able to do their jobs.

"In my day discipline was a community job,'' he said. "Your neighbours would not hesitate to discipline you if they saw you doing something wrong.

But we've lost that so it's not surprising these kinds of crimes are happening.'' Mrs. Sheryl Martins, manager of the Somerset Pharmacy for the past seven years, said at one time Somerset was a quiet place that she enjoyed working in but these events are taking a toll on people who live and work in the area.

"I am really angry and disgusted with what's happening around here,'' she said. "It's all quite worrying and I feel angry at those people who are doing this to our community.'' She added that the violence was partly caused by a general lack of self esteem and basic respect for authority which she said had been made worse by the recession.

She also criticised much of the sociological and psychological reasons used to explain criminal behaviour, which she felt caused more problems than they solved.

"Some of that kind of talk is a lot of nonsense what we have got to do is to get back to basics and teach our young people to respect authority figures like the Police.

"Many of these people are out of work and have too much leisure. Where hands are idle, the devil finds work. What we need are structured programmes that would give these men something to do.'' But another store manager, Mr. Earl Wilson said that it was too simplistic to focus on these recent incidents in Somerset without seeing how these acts of violence are linked.

"It's not just here,'' he said. "What we must realise is that a lot of people feel their backs are against a wall.

"Fifteen years ago Mr. Bryant Richards of Addiction Services was telling people about the drug problem here, but they were content during that time to distance themselves from the problem thinking that drugs were confined to areas such as Court Street and St. Monica's Road.

"Now we are seeing that the drug spots are more diverse and the more people feel their backs are up against a wall their basic animalistic instincts come out.

"People have got to understand how economics affects people.

They are now rebelling against the system.

"We been trying to tell the authorities about this for years but they didn't listen. But now the pussy cat has grown into a lion and you need a rope to hold him.''