Barbados is grappling with an unprecedented wave of gun violence that has already claimed 23 lives this year, but law enforcement officials report early progress from targeted interventions designed to reverse the growing trend. In an appearance on the Government Information Service’s current affairs program *In Focus* Tuesday, Police Commissioner Richard Boyce outlined the aggressive steps his department has taken to disarm criminal networks and stabilize high-risk communities.
Compared to just 22 illegal firearms seized from offenders across all of last year, Boyce confirmed that authorities have already removed 49 weapons from circulation in 2024, marking a dramatic jump in interdiction efforts. This progress comes even as the police service faces a crippling manpower shortage of 200 unfilled positions. To close the gap, the department has forged a formal partnership with the Barbados Defence Force (BDF), whose deployment to community hotspots has drastically expanded operational capacity.
“That has worked tremendously well for us,” Boyce told interviewers. “BDF coming on board and partnering with us has made our job much easier. We’ve been able to position personnel in key locations to address these issues.” Currently, law enforcement is focused on five major organized criminal gangs responsible for much of the territory’s gun violence, and Boyce said sustained patrols and targeted operations have delivered significant tangible successes over recent months.
Putting the local crisis in context, the commissioner noted that rising gun-related crime is a shared challenge across the Caribbean and beyond, positioning Barbados’ response on the right track. While this year has seen six more murder cases than the same period in 2023, overall crime rates across the island have fallen, he added, emphasizing that removing illegal weapons from the streets is critical to preventing collateral harm from indiscriminate gunfire. Boyce also confirmed that ongoing work to expand cross-agency partnerships, both local and international, is continuing to improve outcomes in hotspot areas.
Joining Boyce on the program, Minister of Legal Affairs and Criminal Justice Michael Lashley reaffirmed the government’s commitment to maintaining public safety through a whole-of-nation approach, highlighting the combined police and military presence in violence-impacted communities. As part of long-term reform, the government is planning to overhaul community policing frameworks to make them more responsive to the needs of high-risk neighborhoods. A key new policy initiative, a dedicated gun court, will be established to fast-track processing of firearms-related offenses under the Firearms Act, addressing longstanding delays in the judicial system that have slowed justice for gun crimes. Lashley did not share a formal timeline for the court’s launch but emphasized that swift, consistent justice is a core pillar of the government’s crime reduction strategy.
“We want to have a one-nation approach, and that is what you hear me sometimes speak about harbouring,” Lashley said. “Because if the whole of the nation is on board, we cannot tolerate a small section of society who believe that it’s right to harbour persons who are really impacting on the safety and welfare of Barbados and Barbadians.” The minister added that the strategy combines immediate, visible interventions to curb current violence with long-term programs to address root causes, including support for at-risk individuals and reintegration services for former offenders returning to communities after incarceration, to prevent recidivism.
Criminologist and government crime researcher Cheryl Willoughby, who also joined the discussion, outlined deep-rooted social patterns driving the island’s gun violence crisis. Between 2020 and April 2024, Willoughby noted, 240 men – most of whom were actively contributing to the island’s economy and supporting families – have been murdered, leaving lasting social and economic harm across communities.
Her research has uncovered a striking intergenerational pattern of gun-related crime: 57% of inmates incarcerated or remanded on murder or gun charges have other family members with convictions for similar serious offenses. Breaking that data down, 29% had family members previously convicted of murder, 20% had relatives convicted of firearms offenses, and 14% had family convicted of robbery. 80% of the incarcerated relatives were male, confirming that criminal behavior is often normalized in high-risk households.
“It means that these young people are coming from environments where serious crime is normalised,” Willoughby explained, stressing that any sustainable long-term solution to gun violence must address shifting underlying social values across Barbados to break the cycle of intergenerational offending.