Antigua and Barbuda’s Prime Minister Gaston Browne has made a startling disclosure during parliamentary debate on a key gun policy bill, revealing that more than 200 repeat criminal offenders are currently at large across the country’s streets – a large share of whom are linked to armed robberies – and that their unchecked presence is stretching local law enforcement resources to breaking point.
The revelation came as Browne defended his administration’s controversial Firearms (Amendment) Bill 2026, legislation crafted to dramatically increase prison sentences for individuals convicted of firearms-related offenses. The bill was tabled amid a growing wave of public anxiety over rising gun violence and serious transnational and local crime in the twin-island nation.
Addressing skeptical Members of Parliament who have pushed back against the claim that harsher prison sentences reduce crime rates, Browne acknowledged the argument that stiff penalties do not always deter potential offenders from acting. However, he made the case that longer sentencing delivers an immediate, tangible public safety benefit by keeping high-risk repeat offenders out of communities for extended periods.
“If you have them in jail for a longer period, it means that the police has less individuals to contend with, less criminals to contend with,” Browne told the parliamentary chamber. “In fact, what is happening now, the sheer volume of them now, they are overwhelming the police.”
The prime minister has long been a vocal critic of what he describes as inadequately lenient sentencing for serious criminal offenses in Antigua and Barbuda, arguing that the country’s current public safety crisis demands immediate policy adjustments to curb repeat offending. At the core of his argument is a simple observation: many career criminals are released back into the community after relatively short sentences, only to resume illegal activity almost immediately.
By extending custodial sentences for repeat offenders and firearms-related crimes, Browne says, the government will remove hundreds of known high-risk criminals from streets, easing the operational burden on overstretched police forces already struggling to stem rising robbery rates and violent crime. The debate over the bill comes as Antigua and Barbuda grapples with a regional trend of rising gun-related crime that has put pressure on Caribbean governments to adjust their criminal justice policies to address public safety concerns.