Barbados no longer has clearly defined crime hotspots and the island’s geography now allows offenders to move easily and rapidly between districts, making the entire country vulnerable to retaliatory acts of violence among young men.
That assessment came from Director of the Criminal Justice Research and Planning Unit Cheryl Willoughby, who said research conducted over decades showed a shift in the nature of crime, with youth-on-youth violence and gun-related incidents replacing the acquisitive acts that once dominated the courts.
“We are seeing young people now more involved in violent crimes, gun-related crimes. The crimes we are seeing now are not predatory in nature but I would hazard to say they are retaliatory,” she said, explaining that reprisals now occur quickly and across communities instead of within a fixed territorial boundary.
She pointed out that Barbados’ terrain and road network made movement between districts easy, and that motorcycles and electric bicycles further accelerated mobility.
“Because of the geographical layout of Barbados and the good infrastructure that we have, it is easy to traverse any community. I would say that the entire island is a hot spot,” the criminologist explained following the Unit’s launch of Crime Awareness Month.
Willoughby added that analysis of individual offending patterns consistently showed early exposure to drugs and alcohol as a major factor in youth offending.
“Most of the people that we interview, if not all of them, have admitted to using either marijuana or alcohol, starting from as young as seven, nine years old,” she noted, adding that family networks, peers and school environments were key sources of exposure.
The changing crime profile, she said, had shifted focus from simple deterrence to deeper sociological inquiry.
“Our focus must be on looking at the sociological drivers. What are those extrinsic things within the communities and intrinsic as well? What are some of the things contributing to our young people
being so angry?” Willoughby said.
The Unit’s work over the decades has shown that crime is more closely linked to family structure, peer dynamics, literacy challenges, fragmented parental relationships and inadequate mediation skills than to simple poverty indicators. Willoughby said while there were pockets of economic hardship, the data did not support a direct link between poverty alone and violent offending.
“When we look at most of the crimes being committed, they are being committed in communities that have a high youth population. The family structures in those communities are primarily female-headed. Many of the young people have left school with limited skills and gravitate toward the block environment,” she said.
Willoughby explained that while some might associate certain districts with economic difficulty, modern indicators complicate that assumption. “We may see the housing structure and determine that they are poor but then when we go into those environments, we see televisions and other amenities. So when we speak about poverty, we must ask what we are really talking about,” she said.
She pointed out that the Unit’s role was to study emerging patterns and equip policy-makers to respond effectively. While community-level interventions remain essential, she said the absence of fixed hotspots meant crime-prevention efforts could not be geographically isolated.
“There is no single district where we can say crime is happening. You can get from St Lucy to Bridgetown in half an hour. So our response has to be national and rooted in prevention,” she said.
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