RSS chief: Caribbean crime trends raise security concerns

The head of the Regional Security System (RSS) warned on Monday that rapidly escalating and increasingly organised crime across the Caribbean is getting ahead of law enforcement, with cross-border networks, rising gun violence and expanding illicit markets posing a serious threat to public safety and development.

RSS Executive Director Rear Admiral Errington Shurland said that crime across the Caribbean was becoming more brazen, more connected and more dangerous, placing pressure not only on law enforcement agencies but also on public health systems and wider national development.

He said: “Rising crime rates, dizzying increases in shooting incidents across our communities threatening lives, limbs and the subsequent capacity of our emergency health care facilities, increased recorded offenses for drug-related activities, and the reported links between gangs and the commission of incidents causing bodily harm or intention to cause harm, all combine to threaten the progress made by criminal justice and other authorities.”

Addressing a regional legal forum at the Hilton Barbados, Rear Adm. Shurland said authorities were also becoming increasingly concerned about the level of violence now being displayed in public spaces: “The region is also grappling with the appalling brutality in the commission of these offences, particularly the noted disregard for innocent lives, and the boldness of the criminal element.”

Attorneys general, regional security officials and international stakeholders gathered at the Hilton Barbados Resort on Monday for the opening of a legal forum focused on developing a Caribbean framework for Joint Investigation Teams (JITs) aimed at strengthening cross-border financial crime and asset recovery investigations. (Photo Credit: Shanna Moore/Barbados TODAY)

The comments come against the backdrop of continued concern over shootings and gang activity in several Caribbean territories, including Barbados, where fatal shootings and other violent attacks have reached public spaces, including schools.

Rear Adm. Shurland revealed that large seizures of firearms, ammunition and magazines had already been recorded across the region this year, alongside growing evidence of gang involvement in serious offences.

“In 2025, the region has reported large inland and port seizures of firearms, ammunition and magazines, and gang involvement in the commission of serious crime,” he said.

According to the RSS head, those seizures point to a wider criminal network operating beyond individual territories.

“These seizures, while reported as individual actions of sovereign Caribbean states, also combine to paint a picture of increased marketization of illegal goods and services from various entities operating across and beyond Caribbean jurisdictions.”

The Caribbean’s criminal economy is now, more than ever, tied to networks in Europe, Latin America and Asia, the rear admiral said.

He disclosed that the RSS headquarters, acting as coordinating secretariat for the Asset Recovery Interagency Network for the Caribbean (ARIN-CARIB), had already received requests this year linked to investigations valued at more than €100m (about $237m) from Spain, France, Colombia, Singapore and the Netherlands.

“The increasing requests for information by law enforcement authorities in Europe, Latin America and Asia firmly point out the cross-border links of our national and regional criminal economy with other illicit economies across the international system,” he said.

Rear Adm. Shurland further warned that criminal organisations are moving faster than many justice systems are equipped to respond.

“While crime is becoming increasingly transnational, our established systems are seriously lagging behind, hindered by bureaucratic processes, language barriers and differences in legal framework,” he said, further arguing that Caribbean countries would have to deepen cooperation if they hoped to effectively tackle organised crime.

“For the Caribbean, cooperative frameworks are not just viable – they are essential to buttressing our individual and shared capacities to address common problems.”

The RSS executive director was speaking at the opening of a two-day forum bringing together attorneys general, prosecutors, law enforcement officials and regional partners to discuss stronger cross-border approaches to financial crime and organised criminal investigations.

(SM)