Barbados’ top criminal justice official is pushing for sweeping updates to the island nation’s decades-old public safety legislation, arguing that current maximum penalties for violent public offenses fail to match the gravity of modern violent crime, including the country’s first recorded mass shooting.
Minister of Legal Affairs and Criminal Justice Michael Lashley told parliamentary lawmakers that the 1970 Public Order Act — the legislation governing public assemblies, processions, and the preservation of peace in shared public spaces — is out of step with current security threats. He pointed specifically to the 2017 Grand Kadooment mass shooting, an unprecedented incident for the Caribbean nation, to illustrate the law’s gaps. In that case, all accused individuals were only charged with violent disorder under the existing act, despite the use of firearms in the attack.
Under the current Public Order Act, a person convicted of violent disorder via indictment faces a maximum penalty of seven years in prison, a $50,000 fine, or both. Lashley emphasized that this maximum sentence is insufficient to match the harm caused by offenses that put broad public safety at risk. “Although you have threatened public safety, you’ve threatened citizen security, and you have committed acts of lawlessness and recklessness,” Lashley said, arguing that even outside the scope of domestic terrorism, a full overhaul of the law governing public order offenses is long overdue.
Lashley made his case for reform while speaking in support of the new Domestic Terrorism Bill before the House of Assembly on Tuesday. He explained that the new legislation, paired with existing anti-gang laws, will provide prosecutors with expanded legal tools to crack down on violent crime and deter offending through significantly harsher sentencing.
The minister stressed that the reform package is a deliberate signal that the government takes gun violence seriously. “With this commitment, we are seeking now to deter individuals, deter gang members from committing these lawless offences, or reckless offences,” he said. “The fact that if you take up a gun or you take up a ‘collins’ and run into a public place, and threaten public safety, threaten persons who are in an open public place enjoying themselves, then you should suffer the consequences. It is a commitment to the fact that we are treating gun violence seriously.”
Beyond the immediate risk to public safety, Lashley highlighted the long-term social and economic costs of unregulated public violence. He noted that victims injured by unconnected, reckless perpetrators often become long-term financial and care burdens for both their families and the national government.
Unlike the outdated Public Order Act, the new Domestic Terrorism Bill includes strict, proportionate penalties that add a critical new layer to the island’s anti-crime strategy, Lashley said. He added that the legislation is part of a broader coordinated effort to strengthen Barbados’ entire criminal justice system, joining prior legislative updates including reforms to the Bail Act, Firearms Act, Gun Court Act and Supreme Court of Judicature Act, as well as the passage of the Witness Protection Bill. All of these interconnected policy changes are designed to improve outcomes for public safety and law enforcement across the country.