Trauma, fractured families driving crime and mental health crisis, say survey

A government-commissioned survey suggested that family breakdown and untreated trauma are fuelling rising violence, addiction and mental health problems across Barbados, according to the Ministry of Empowerment and Elder Affairs consultant who led the study.

Pastor Eliseus Joseph shared the findings from the survey conducted over the past eight months, with the support of Prime Minister Mia Mottley.

“I would say the last eight months is that we have audited all 25 to 30 high-risk communities,” Joseph told reporters, defining these as communities “predominantly having challenges with crime and violence”. Central to those challenges, he explained, is trauma.

Drawing on crime data, Joseph noted that between 2015 and 2020 Barbados recorded “possibly over 450 homicides”, which he described as “really a lot” for a small island state. However, he stressed that statistics alone do not tell the full story behind violent behaviour.

As part of the exercise, his team conducted a participant survey involving approximately 2 000 young people, mainly from Generation Z and Millennials. Gen Z respondents ranged from ages 14 to 29, while Millennials fell within the 30 to 44 age group.

Stakeholders at Tuesday’s Forum of Ideas for Youth Mentorship Village Builders Breakfast Meeting, held at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre. (SB)

“What we have found is that the biggest problem in Barbados is fractured families,” Joseph said. “Families arefractured. So we’ve identified the trauma in Barbados, and the trauma is what we call attachment trauma.”
He explained that attachment trauma occurs when secure emotional bonds, particularly in childhood, are broken or never formed. “People’s secure attachments have been ruptured, have been destroyed,” he said, pointing to the absence of a consistent male figure in many homes as one of several contributing factors.

“I want to make it clear…the absent father is not the only issue. It’s one of the issues in Barbados,” Joseph stressed. “But the absent father is a detachment from a male figure in your home, and that has created major problems both from a female perspective and a male perspective.”According to Joseph, the way this trauma manifests differs between young men and young women. “What we have found, especially among the males, is that they externalise the stuff,” he said. “They become violent, they become aggressive, and they become addicted in many cases.”

For females, the response is often inward. “They internalise it. They never feel good enough, they are very critical… they practise a lot of self-judgement, a lot of self-harm, and they also are directed to addiction,” he explained. “Addiction helps them.”

Joseph argued that these patterns highlight a deeper national crisis that goes beyond policing and punishment. “One of the biggest problems that we find in Barbados, the biggest problem is the mental health issues,” he said. While declining to cite specific figures, he was emphatic about the scale of the problem.

“It’s the mental health issues, and then comes the addiction, and then comes the violence and the aggression,” he said.

“Anxiety and depression and then the element of addiction – those are the three problems that we have in Barbados.”

He suggested that without addressing trauma, mental health and family stability, efforts to reduce crime would remain limited in their impact. The findings, he said, are intended to help guide the development of more holistic crime prevention strategies, particularly those focused on early intervention, mentorship and community-based support.

Meaningful change would require collaboration across government, civil society, faith-based organisations and communities themselves, he said, emphasising that crime prevention must start with healing individuals and strengthening families.

The ministry consultant revealed the survey’s findings on the sidelines of the Forum of Ideas for Youth Mentorship Village Builders Breakfast Meeting at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre.

shamarblunt@barbadostoday.bb