Attorney General Dale Marshall on Monday called for urgent, comprehensive research into the relationship between domestic abuse and the surge in violent crimes committed by school-aged boys, warning that unstable homes are producing children who are primed for gangs and crime.
As a two-day Regional Symposium to Advance State Responses on Domestic Violence opened at the Hilton Barbados Resort, Marshall said that while definitive evidence-based data is still needed, the connection between family breakdown and youth delinquency is “almost intuitive”, and undeniable.
The symposium, which is supported by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), and the government, is examining domestic abuse across the region and how countries should respond to its root causes.
The AG told representatives that the country could no longer treat violence inside the home and violence perpetrated by teenagers as separate problems.
He said: “Even though we have not had the benefit of any scientific study that connected dysfunctional families to a lot of our young men and women who were getting involved in criminal activity, it was almost obvious that that is exactly what was happening.”
He noted that from early in the administration’s term, Cabinet has placed priority on family stabilisation, channelling significant public funds into the One Family Programme and similar interventions.
“We’ve spent a lot of government resources to try to shore up the family unit so that the family unit is then able to protect and safeguard its younger members. Where you have dysfunctional families, those dysfunctional families will foster young men and women who more easily gravitate towards the gang culture.”
Marshall added: “Instead of the strong influence coming from the home, the strong influence is more likely to come from the gang leader or the individual on the block who offers our young men the kind of support and encouragement that they need.”
The attorney general insisted that the issue is not simply a concern for social workers, but a public safety reality already playing out in cases being pursued by police personnel.
Marshall explained: “We’ve charged, I think, about two 16-year-olds for firearm homicides. We’ve charged a number of individuals, young men under 16, who subjected parts of Barbados to a reign of terror… robberies, stealing motor cars, and they’re under 16.”
The Criminal Justice Research Unit is currently conducting research into several aspects of the issue, Marshall said, cautioning that research cannot be the excuse for delays in targeted interventions.
“The issue isn’t so much whether we do a study or not; the issue is whether the work that we’ve been doing has been yielding fruit, and it’s probably too early to tell. But we are maintaining our support for families facing challenges, making sure that they have access to food, access to proper educational arrangements.”
He framed domestic violence not as a “today-only” harm but as a pipeline into tomorrow’s crime statistics.
“Dysfunctional families are often the breeding ground for young individuals who are involved in crime. When we address the issue of domestic violence, it isn’t just a question of addressing the issue for today and solving the problem for today, it has to be the notion that we try to reorient dysfunctional families so that those dysfunctional families don’t result in dysfunctional young people.”
He stressed that without interrupting the transmission of violence from one generation to the next, the country will simply be managing fallout rather than reducing crime.
(SB)
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