Newly released crime analytics from Barbados’ Criminal Justice Research and Planning Unit (CJRPU) have flagged a rapidly growing public safety concern: robberies are claiming a steadily larger share of the country’s major offence landscape, even as total serious crime volumes hold nearly steady year-over-year. Kirt Goodridge, Senior Research Analyst at CJRPU, laid out the stark emerging trends during the Tuesday broadcast of the special online public affairs program *IN FOCUS | Crime Trends 2026: Tracking Criminal Activity & Justice Issues in Barbados*. Data covering the first nine months of 2026 shows a total of 490 major crimes recorded across the island, with quarterly totals showing minimal fluctuation: 170 in Q1, 160 in Q2, and 160 in Q3. But the internal composition of these offences has shifted dramatically. Robberies made up 41% of all major crimes in the January-March window, climbed to 49% in April-June, and hit 52% in the July-September quarter, marking a consistent, worrying upward trajectory. This surge in robberies, particularly those involving firearms, stands in sharp contrast to positive declines in other high-harm violent offences. Murder counts dropped sequentially from 14 in Q1 to 13 in Q2, then fell sharply to 7 in Q3, while cases of serious bodily harm decreased from 55 to 39 to 33 over the same three periods. Goodridge noted these downward trends indicate existing targeted violent crime reduction strategies are delivering measurable progress, but the parallel rise in robberies and gun-enabled incidents represents an unaddressed vulnerability in public safety frameworks. Firearms remain the dominant weapon in homicide cases across all three quarters: 79% of Q1 murders involved guns, that share spiked to 92% in Q2, and only fell to 57% in Q3. While gun use in homicides dipped in the third quarter, Goodridge pointed out that the gap was filled by a rise in fatal stabbings involving knives and cutlasses, signalling that interpersonal conflicts still frequently escalate to lethal violence. Underpinning these worrying trends is a widespread, unregulated proliferation of illegal firearms across the island. CJRPU’s qualitative research interviews with incarcerated offenders reveal that access to unregistered weapons is far easier than the general public assumes. While most inmates refused to detail their exact sources for firearms, nearly all confirmed that obtaining a gun required minimal effort, with many repeat offenders reporting they were able to re-possess a firearm within just one week of being released from prison — even after prior convictions for weapons-related offences. Goodridge emphasized that these findings expose critical gaps in current post-release supervision and illegal firearms interdiction policies, raising urgent questions for justice policymakers about how to disrupt the easy flow of unregulated weapons to repeat offenders and curb the accelerating robbery trend before it undermines broader public safety gains.