标签： Barbados

When the 2024 academic year kicks off this September, Barbados will roll out a groundbreaking mandatory community service programme for all secondary school students, designed to address rising youth crime and strengthen core civic values across the island nation. Education Transformation Minister Chad Blackman announced the initiative, dubbed “60 at 60,” during a parliamentary address, framing the programme as a proactive, prevention-focused complement to stricter law enforcement measures targeting gun-related offences.

Under the new rules, all students seeking to complete their secondary education must complete 60 hours of approved community-focused activity before graduation. Participants can choose to work with civic organizations, join uniformed youth groups, or participate in organized team sports to meet the requirement. This marks the first time Barbados has integrated a mandatory civic engagement component into its formal national secondary curriculum.

Speaking to lawmakers, Blackman emphasized that the initiative moves far beyond traditional academic benchmarks. Its core mission is to shape responsible, community-oriented citizens by instilling critical soft skills that formal classroom learning often overlooks: discipline, collaborative teamwork, empathetic communication, and constructive conflict resolution. These skills, he argued, are essential to guiding young people away from delinquent behaviour and addressing the deep-rooted social factors that push youth toward crime.

“Many young people earn strong grades and follow all the rules, but qualifications alone are not enough to build a strong nation,” Blackman told Parliament. “If young people leave school without the right mindset—without empathy, without knowing how to resolve conflict peacefully, without a sense of shared responsibility to their communities—we have failed them.”

The minister noted that criminal behaviour rarely develops overnight. Individuals facing gun-related charges do not turn to crime by random chance; instead, their paths are often shaped by underlying social gaps, including peer pressure, the absence of a stable guiding adult figure in the home, and a lack of positive extracurricular engagement. By placing young people in structured community settings early in their education, the government aims to intervene before at-risk youth turn to harmful activity.

To support the successful launch of the programme, Blackman has issued a renewed public call for volunteer mentors across Barbados. He stressed that the call is open to all community members, not just men—pointing to the decades of critical leadership women have provided through longstanding youth groups like Cub Scouts, Brownies, and Girl Guides. Retired residents and working professionals alike are invited to donate a few hours of their time to support the initiative, which forms a core part of the government’s broader national youth development strategy.

“Our goal is to give young people the tools, values and discipline they need to thrive long after they leave school, and to make our entire nation proud,” Blackman said. “When community members step up to mentor our youth, they help build a stronger, safer Barbados for everyone.”

Addressing ongoing concerns about the creeping culture of illegal gun ownership across the island, Blackman reaffirmed Barbados’ commitment to confronting the crisis head-on. He pushed back against the dangerous normalization of gun violence that has spread on social media, where some young people now brandish illegal firearms as if they are characters in a Hollywood film. There is no room for tolerance or indifference toward this harmful trend, he insisted.

The minister also called on parents, families and community leaders to work together to reframe public perception of gun-related crime: gun charges should never be viewed as a badge of honor among young people, he said, and there is nothing respectable or impressive about appearing in court on firearms offences.

A wanted Barbadian man linked to severe criminal cases has turned himself in to law enforcement, closing an intensive 24-hour search that relied on public cooperation. Dwayne Marlon Drakes, who is also known by the alias ‘Oily’, presented himself at the Holetown Police Station on Wednesday, one full day after the Barbados Police Service issued a public wanted bulletin asking citizens to share any information about his location.

TBPS confirmed that following Drakes’ voluntary surrender, the suspect is currently cooperating with detectives as they advance their investigations into the serious criminal matters he is connected to. Law enforcement officials also extended formal gratitude to both members of the general public and regional media outlets, who responded swiftly to the Tuesday appeal and supported the investigation through the sharing of information and widespread circulation of the wanted notice.

Barbados is moving forward with an ambitious, comprehensive overhaul of its national prison system, centered on shifting from a purely custodial model to one prioritized on rehabilitation, reduced recidivism and the dismantling of internal criminal networks, Home Affairs Minister Gregory Nicholls has announced. The initiative forms a core pillar of the country’s broader national crime prevention strategy, with a targeted focus on transforming Dodds Prison as the first major site of reform.

Speaking on the second day of the Barbados Probation Service’s “Modern Perspectives on Sentencing and Penal Reform” symposium held at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre, Nicholls emphasized that failing to move beyond the outdated model of merely housing inmates would only perpetuate the cycles of crime that have long plagued the country. “Effective prison systems have to rehabilitate offenders, have to break the strength of the criminal networks inside the prisons and reinforce nonviolent norms and identities,” the minister stated.

Nicholls pointed out that crime disproportionately impacts young men across Barbadian society, and the current largely custodial system has only strengthened criminal networks while failing to cut reoffending rates. To reverse this trend, he said, national security frameworks must be reformed to reduce community violence, with the modernization of penal institutions serving as a critical first step.

A central target of the six-year transformation plan is cutting recidivism by 30 percent, reshaping traditional prisons into dynamic rehabilitation centers that improve offender reintegration, reduce in-prison violence and build stronger institutional resilience. To achieve this goal, the plan outlines multiple interconnected strategies, starting with the introduction of evidence-based programming designed to drive lasting behavioral change. These programs include structured rehabilitation courses, cognitive behavior therapy, substance abuse treatment, violence intervention training and conflict resolution workshops.

Nicholls rejected the status quo of confining inmates to cells with only one to two hours of yard time daily as an ineffective approach that does nothing to prepare offenders for release. Instead, the reform plan embeds comprehensive education and skills training into daily prison routines, including Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) certification in high-demand fields such as construction, information and communications technology, agriculture and maritime skills. For inmates who have never earned formal basic qualifications, the system will also expand literacy and numeracy programming, and officials are currently reviewing a proposal from the University of the West Indies to establish a tertiary education pipeline that allows inmates to pursue higher education while incarcerated.

The reform strategy also prioritizes targeting high-risk groups, including young men involved in gang activity, drug trafficking and firearms-related offenses who remain vulnerable to outside criminal influence even while incarcerated. Additional measures to cut in-prison violence include the launch of peer mentorship programs and the adoption of a formal restorative justice framework that centers accountability and healing over punitive isolation.

A core end goal of the entire transformation is to ensure that offenders leave prison prepared to rejoin society as productive, contributing citizens. To support this, the plan establishes a national reintegration program that covers pre-release planning, stable housing placement, employment support and sustained connection with family members. An existing prison aftercare committee has been tasked with expanding its mandate far beyond its current role of providing basic clothing and small stipends to releasing inmates. The committee will now work directly with private sector businesses, non-governmental organizations and government bodies, drawing on national crime prevention budgets to develop sustained support programs for returning citizens.

Nicholls also highlighted efforts to expand job placement partnerships with the private sector, create new apprenticeship opportunities for ex-offenders, strengthen second-chance employment frameworks and challenge the cultural taboos that create unnecessary barriers to work for people with criminal records. Completing the core reform priorities are plans to upgrade outdated prison infrastructure, increase and train staffing levels, and integrate smart security technology into daily operations.

Speaking on the same panel alongside Nicholls, Dodds Prison Superintendent DeCarlo Payne reaffirmed the shared vision for reform, noting that the sector’s goal is no longer simply to contain people, but to prepare them for successful reintegration into community life. Payne outlined that several behavioral, educational and vocational training initiatives are already up and running at Dodds Prison, and these early programs have already begun to deliver positive results.

Payne added that the current Prisons Act is archaic and ill-suited to the new model of corrections, meaning comprehensive legislative reform is a critical prerequisite for rolling out all planned changes. New operational frameworks including ankle monitoring for low-risk offenders, expanded parole, community service sentences and transitional housing all require formal monitoring structures, leading to calls for the establishment of a dedicated parole department.

Payne emphasized that the full transition from a traditional prison service to a modern Department of Corrections will require targeted investment in infrastructure, formalized institutional restructuring and full implementation of new operational frameworks. While a corrections headquarters is already included in existing planning, Payne said officials will revisit the proposal to speed up its activation. Additional key priorities for the transition include policy reform, ongoing staff training, institutional cultural transformation, full technological integration, sustained investment in rehabilitation programming and focused, adaptive leadership across the sector.

Barbados is advancing a multi-million-dollar infrastructure and operational overhaul to transform the aging Government Industrial School (GIS) into a fit-for-purpose modern juvenile detention facility, a change mandated by the island nation’s landmark 2024 Child Justice Act. The announcement of the plans came during the second day of the Barbados Probation Service’s symposium, “Modern Perspectives on Sentencing and Penal Reform”, at a dedicated panel discussion focused on the readiness and resource requirements of the new child justice legislation.

Speaking to attendees gathered at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre, GIS Principal Seilest Bradshaw made a clear case that the new law can only deliver on its intended goals if significant targeted investment is channeled into the institution. “The 2024 Act requires a secure, purpose-built residential facility, and that is not what we operate today,” Bradshaw explained. “Our current set-up is more comparable to a group home, which cannot meet the requirements of the new legislation. We need major investments in both core infrastructure and specialized professional staff; a full, comprehensive restructuring of GIS is non-negotiable to bring the institution in line with the vision laid out in the new law. Legislation sets the standard, but it is funding that determines whether that standard can actually be achieved.”

In direct response to Bradshaw’s call, Minister of Home Affairs Gregory Nicholls confirmed that the project is already well in motion. “We have put hundreds of collaborative work hours into this planning process, bringing together the GIS principal, my ministry’s project implementation unit, the permanent secretary, and the full project team,” Nicholls said. “We just met with the project architect last Friday, and we know this transformation will run into millions of dollars. The facility was originally built as a dormitory-style space for misbehaving children under the century-old 1926 Reformatory and Industrial Schools Act, and it is not suited for the needs of today’s young people in the system.”

Nicholls also noted that the population of youth entering the facility has shifted dramatically since the 1926 legislation was first enacted. “Today, the children who come through our doors are not the same offenders the 1926 law was designed to address,” he said. “Many of these young people have endured neglect, multiple forms of abuse – verbal, physical, sexual, emotional – starvation, and abandonment. They end up on the streets, get in trouble at school, use cannabis, start out as lookouts for criminal actors, move on to stashing illicit goods, commit petty theft, and too often graduate to involvement in gun crime.”

Bradshaw emphasized that the 2024 Child Justice Act represents a fundamental philosophical shift in how the country approaches youth in conflict with the law. The new framework centers the reality that these young people are first and foremost children, with inherent rights, untapped potential, and the capacity to rehabilitate and change. Core to this new approach are principles of accountability through counseling, restorative justice practice, community-focused sanctions, and an overarching priority on rehabilitation over punishment.

One major ongoing challenge Bradshaw highlighted is pervasive community stigma against youth who have gone through the juvenile justice system. Even when these young people complete their sentences and are cleared of criminal records, she explained, social stigma often creates greater barriers to re-entry than a formal record would. “When these young people return to their communities, they are not given a fighting chance to rebuild their lives,” Bradshaw said. “Some people still throw their past in their face. Even though they don’t carry a formal criminal record, gossip and social judgment often do more harm than a criminal record ever could.”

She added that many youth return to the same unstable home and community environments that originally contributed to their harmful behavior, with little access to stable family support. “I am begging, I am pleading for these young people to get the ongoing support they need in their communities after they leave the facility,” she said.

The principal also called for an end to siloed working practices across government agencies, stressing that sustained positive outcomes require coordinated action from social services, education, health, and justice systems working in lockstep.

While the institution works to provide the resources and structure for rehabilitation, Bradshaw noted that the greatest driver of change is the young people’s own dedication – pointing to a growing number of success stories from the GIS. “Nine of our young people in custody have already completed their Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate examinations, and seven young men are currently waiting to be assessed for their barbering certification,” she said. “On any normal day, you can see these young people learning in classrooms, following structured routines. These are the same young people that no one believed in, that no one ever told were capable of achieving these goals.”

On a recent Tuesday at its Barbados campus, Ross University School of Medicine (RUSM), a private for-profit medical institution, awarded a series of grants to 11 local charitable organizations spanning health services, social advocacy, youth development, and community support. The initiative is designed to deepen cross-sector community partnerships and scale up critical support systems for vulnerable populations across the island.

The 11 recipient organizations cover a broad spectrum of community needs: Verdun House Substance Abuse Foundation, the Rotary Club of Barbados, Rotary Club of Barbados South, Caribbean Colon Cancer Initiative, Healthier Nation Initiative Foundation, Hope Foundation, Heart and Stroke Foundation of Barbados, Barbados Alliance to End Homelessness, Eden Lodge Youth Charitable Trust, Barbados Breastfeeding and Child Nutrition Foundation, and the Pleion Foundation. Each group has a decades-long track record of addressing unmet social and health needs in local communities across Barbados.

During the short award ceremony, Dr. Rhonda McIntyre, Senior Associate Dean of External Affairs at RUSM, opened with remarks that framed the grant distribution as more than a financial transaction. She emphasized that the event was a public recognition of the profound commitment, compassionate outreach, and transformative vision that each recipient organization brings to the communities they serve.

“Each of these organizations fills a critical gap in addressing pressing social and health challenges across Barbados, while working to build a more inclusive, healthy future for all Barbadians,” McIntyre noted. “Whether you are developing safe, supportive spaces for young people to grow, expanding access to life-saving essential healthcare, or lifting up unhoused community members, your work drives tangible, daily improvement to people’s lives across the country. We are deeply honored to stand alongside you as you advance this important, noble mission.”

While the university did not publicly disclose the total monetary value of the combined grants, McIntyre made clear that RUSM’s commitment to local community groups extends far beyond one-time financial contributions. She explained that this ongoing partnership is rooted in the core values shared by RUSM and its parent company, Covista Communications, which has long championed the impact of collaborative community work. “This is not just a financial commitment; it is a commitment to building long-term relationships rooted in mutual respect and a shared goal of lifting up all Barbadians,” McIntyre said.

Beyond supporting the critical work of local charities, the partnership also offers unique, formative learning opportunities for RUSM medical students completing their studies on the island. McIntyre explained that hands-on engagement with community organizations gives students real-world experience that cannot be taught in a traditional lecture hall, complementing their formal academic medical training.

“Our students come to Barbados to study medicine, but they gain far more than the knowledge we deliver in the classroom,” McIntyre said. “The work they do alongside your teams—listening to community members, learning about local challenges, and lending their time and skills to support your missions—shapes them into the empathetic, community-centered physicians and leaders they will become in their future careers. You teach them empathy, adaptability, and the core value of service to others that no textbook can fully convey.”

The ceremony was documented through official photography by Shamar Blunt of Barbados TODAY, capturing the grant presentations to leadership from the Hope Foundation, Caribbean Colon Cancer Initiative, and Barbados Breastfeeding and Child Nutrition Foundation.