Record homicide threat as youth crime surges

Barbados is on track for its deadliest year on record, with youth crime fuelling a surge in homicides, Cheryl Willoughby, the head of the Criminal Justice Research and Planning Unit (CJRPU) warned on Friday, calling for urgent, united action to tackle the crisis.

As she presented the unit’s latest research on the rising tide of crimes against people and property to a stakeholder meeting, Willoughby—herself a mother—said young men and, increasingly, young women should be the focus of decisive action on the issues fuelling crime.

At one point, the top criminal justice researcher dropped her notes and spoke candidly: “As you can see, I didn’t prepare a speech. I believe that when we’re confronting young people, we’ve got to do it from the heart. And that’s what I’d like to do—speak from my experience and from my concerns.”

“So far, for the month of June, we have had ten murders,” she said. “We are almost at 30 murders for the year. If we continue on this trajectory, based on trend analysis, we may experience as many as 60 homicides for the year. And that is something that, as Barbadians, as persons working with youth, we do not want to see.”

Willoughby, a former 14-year veteran of The Barbados Police Service, said the statistics reflect deeper breakdowns within the family and education systems.

“I am disturbed, like many of you,” she said. “I am a mother, and I see what is happening among our young men. I am the mother of a son too. And when we can have 17-year-olds charged with murder and gun-related offences, it tells us that there is something going on within the family unit… that we need to examine.”

She also turned the spotlight on an often-overlooked aspect of crime—the role of women.

“I don’t only want us to focus on our young men. I want us to also look at the role our young women are playing… They may not be the ones who are up front with the guns and the planning and so on, but we have to examine the role that women are playing in the uptake of crime and violence,” the head of the CJRPU said.

Willoughby noted a concerning rise in violence among girls, particularly in schools, and hinted that her department intends to launch targeted research in this area.

“Women were previously perceived as caregivers, but now I’m seeing a lot of violence occurring among our girls—the fights and so on. So we need to look and see how we can put that into a scientific study.”

She also pointed to the serious consequences of failures in the education system, particularly among at-risk youth.

“When we have inmates who are challenged… in terms of their reading and writing and their skills, we have a problem in terms of our education system. We need to look at it. We need reform.”

Willoughby referenced a recent departmental study which found that students who had been suspended or expelled were more likely to enter the criminal justice system.

“We would have had one on remand for murder,” she disclosed. “We need to look at the prospect of having social interventions early… and to address any learning deficits that they may have, whether at primary school or at secondary school.”

Although she praised the support of the Attorney General’s Office and The Barbados Police Service in supplying crime data, and highlighted the recent launch of the National Crime Observatory, which aims to centralise criminal justice statistics for easy access by the public and media, she stressed that access to data alone is not enough.

She also reiterated the urgent need for pooling resources across agencies, warning that government departments were under pressure due to staffing shortages and limited funding.

“Too long, we have depended on total information to be able to address these issues. But now we have the Criminal Justice Research and Planning Unit… with competent staff to be able to provide stakeholders with the necessary information so we can put our resources where they most need it.

She continued: “We did a SWOT [strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats] analysis of the departments within government, within our criminal justice departments, and all of them indicated that lack of resources is a problem in terms of human resources. I know that it may be a challenge…but in light of that, if we can pool our resources in terms of working together, certainly we can impact that deficit that we’re seeing within the various departments.”

The CJRPU has also begun working with the University of Bethany to conduct a national victimisation survey, designed to uncover the so-called “dark figures of crime”—offences that go unreported. 

“Research across the world has shown that when police report official crime statistics, [actual] crime statistics are usually four times as high,” Willoughby noted.

The ultimate goal, she stressed, is a proactive, data-driven strategy that addresses the root causes of crime—particularly in socially disorganised communities. “What I mean by that, there is unemployment, there are issues within the communities in terms of resources… housing, employment, et cetera. If we can address these criminogenic issues… I believe that we have a good chance of turning around what we see happening within Barbados.” 

sheriabrathwaite@barbadostoday.bb