Barbados Urged for Inclusive Strategy to Combat Surge in Violent Crime

Government is being called on to have a more inclusive and comprehensive approach to fighting the surge in violent crime in Barbados.

President of the Barbados Youth Development Council, Caleb Brathwaite, says while they support Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley’s plans announced on Friday, there needed to be a national meeting involving various stakeholders from civil society to collaboratively “wrestle crime to the ground”.

He made the plea during a press conference at the Ministry of Youth, Haggatt Hall, St Michael, yesterday.

“We did agree with the measures proposed, but we believe that the Prime Minister should still convene a national meeting of stakeholders, encompassing civil society which includes organisations such as ours,” he said. “This is so that collectively, as a nation, we can deal with the mission at hand and wrestle crime to the ground.”

He said while Government’s plans were commendable, a collective approach could yield even more effective solutions.

“So even though Government may have ideas, we may come into a room and create other solutions. We would have proposed various developmental programmes such as opening resource centres for longer times. However, when we come together, we can develop even more ideas. “We must recognise that an all-society approach is what is needed to wrestle crime to the ground,” he said. Highlighting the rising crime among youth, with five homicides in seven days up to Thursday, Brathwaite attributed the situation to a “systemic failure” from the past. “Based on what we are seeing in recent times, we understand that crime is prevalent among young people. A lot of young people are dying as a result of gun violence. When we address the root cause of this, we discover that it is that of systemic failure years ago which is now trickling down and having that effect,” the council president said.

He also said the problem of gangs in Barbados had to be dealt with.

“When the Prime Minister spoke about organised crime, we must understand that what we are seeing now is that these crimes are not random. We have to be real that there are gangs in Barbados. These gangs form when there is a lack of community programmes, which would have ensured that these groups of young people are not left to idleness.”

Brathwaite called for longer opening hours for community and resource centres.

“[They] close at 4 p.m. when the children are getting home around that time. This has to stop and there has to be a better mechanism. Consideration may have to be given to bringing in night staff,” he said, while noting that organisations such as his were in need of funding to do more community outreach.

“We do recognise that it is not an overnight fix and some of these measures may take a couple of months to implement, but we must implement the short-term fix alongside the long-term ones.” (CLM)