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By Stefan K. Newton
On the global stage, Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley commands standing ovations.
She has become one of the most recognizable voices in the international conversation on climate justice and financial reform, particularly through her signature proposal — the Bridgetown Initiative.
Her call for reparations for slavery and a new development deal for the Global South has earned her respect across Africa and acclaim from international institutions.
She has graced the cover of TIME Magazine, been profiled in Vogue, and accepted the prestigious Zayed Award for Human Fraternity.
At climate summits and global forums, Mottley speaks with moral clarity and oratorical brilliance. She is, without question, one of the most influential leaders to emerge from the Caribbean in this century.
But back home, the applause is drowned out by gunfire.
This is the quieter image of Barbados, one not found on postcards or conference stages.
It’s the image of a 166-square-mile island where the promise of safety, opportunity, and stability is being chipped away by a rising tide of violent gun crime.
As the Prime Minister builds her legacy abroad, many Barbadians are left asking: who is protecting the legacy — and lives — of people at home?
This international image of Barbados, found on Instagram reels of sun-drenched beaches and smiling locals, is a stark contrast to the Nation News headlines of “Living in Fear” and “Gunfire Shakes Six Roads” that now appear on a near-daily basis.
Together, they tell the story of a country gripped by a domestic crisis, one that no filter or drone shot can conceal.
The surge in gun and gang-related violence has shaken the country’s sense of security.
In 2024, Barbados recorded its highest number of criminal incidents in over a decade, with the Royal Barbados Police Force citing a troubling increase in firearm-related offences.
The most disturbing trend is the weaponry itself: high-powered firearms, often untraceable, are now in circulation, raising questions not just about policing, but national security.
The crisis came to a head on 22 June, 2025, when four gunmen launched a coordinated shooting spree with large automatic guns across two districts in St. Michael.
Gunshots damaged buildings and vehicles, with stray bullets entering homes and spent shells scattered across the road.
In response, Commissioner of Police Richard Boyce issued a chilling assessment, the violence, he said, had reached the level of domestic terrorism.
“Gangs have now declared open war on our society,” he told the nation. His words echoed a broader sentiment, that something fundamental is breaking.
Just hours after the deadly shooting spree, Deputy Prime Minister Santia Bradshaw, speaking at a Barbados Labour Party (“BLP”) branch meeting, confirmed what many already felt.
“Barbados is at a tipping point,” she said, noting that of the 25 homicides reported so far this year, she personally knew at least 20 of the victims. The loss is no longer abstract. It is personal, painful, and close.
This surge in violence does not exist in a vacuum. It reflects, in part, the same inequality that Prime Minister Mottley so passionately critiques on the world stage. But in Barbados, that inequality is felt in a more immediate and painful form.
The unequal ability to feel safe. A 2025 national survey led by University of the West Indies Professor Dwayne Devonish found that some families are now spending tens of thousands on home security, while others, unable to afford CCTV or electric gates, live in fear.
The burden of insecurity has become yet another tax on the poor.
There is also an educational dimension to this crisis. A recent study revealed that 95 percent of those convicted of violent crimes in Barbados read at the level of a toddler.
That statistic is not just damning, it is heartbreaking.
It points to the persistence of deep systemic failure, particularly in the education system, which the Prime Minister pledged to reform in page 14 of the 2018 BLP Manifesto entitled “Building the Best Barbados Together”.
Back in 2018, across campaign platform speeches Mottley promised the “death knell of the Common Entrance Exam” and the elevation of every school to “top school” status.
In 2023, that the Mottley-led administration unveiled a plan to “deconstruct and reconstruct” Barbados’ education system in a glossy policy document titled “Reimagining Education in Barbados.”
The launch event, led by then Minister of Education Kay McConney and Chief Education Officer Romana Archer-Bradshaw had the feel of a high-end Apple product reveal, complete with flashy visuals, aspirational goals, and polished messaging.
But, two years later since the launch of the “Reimagining Education in Barbados” policy and after two terms in office for the Mottley administration, the Common Entrance Exam remains in place unchanged.
There has also been no comprehensive update on the Reimagining Education plan’s implementation, and the colonial-era structure still sorts 11-year-olds into academic fates, reinforcing privilege for a few and limiting mobility for many.
For all the talk of deconstruction and reconstruction, the reality for thousands of students — especially those from working-class communities — is that they are still being failed by an outdated and unequal system.
The divide between elite and underperforming schools continues to fuel cycles of inequality and marginalization, trapping many young people in cycles of underachievement, frustration, and economic exclusion.
The very conditions that incubate crime and the ongoing social crisis.
Efforts to stem the violence have so far failed to inspire confidence. The National Advisory Council on Citizen Security to Fight Crime (Crime Council), launched in 2024, was intended to serve as a wide-reaching, strategic response to the problem.
Yet, its effectiveness has been undermined by its own leadership crisis. Chairperson Professor Velma Newton resigned less than a year into the role, warning that the process risked becoming a “good opportunity to make money from public funds.
This was my feeling when I finally saw some of the “Peace Programme” initiatives, and I still feel this way.” She was not the only one to raise alarms.
The National Peace Program (NPP), designed to steer young men away from gang violence, has also faced damning scrutiny.
The Attorney General, Dale Marshall himself has admitted “mistakes were made,” after it was discovered that individuals still involved in criminal activity had received state funding under the guise of community outreach. Public trust, once again, was squandered.
This pattern -bold announcements followed by weak implementation — is becoming all too familiar. It’s not a lack of ideas, but a lack of follow-through.
And in the realm of citizen security, failure carries a high price: lost lives, broken families, and a population retreating into fear.
It also forces an uncomfortable reckoning with the dual narratives that now define Barbados. On one hand, a global stateswoman whose voice resonates from New York to Addis Ababa.
On the other, a domestic crisis playing out in the exchange gun shots between warring gangs and the funerals of young men. The dissonance is no longer symbolic.
It is structural. And it is unsustainable.
The situation facing Barbados today is not unique. Countries across the Caribbean and Latin America are wrestling with similar challenges: inequality, youth disenfranchisement, and the destabilizing influence of illegal firearms.
But what makes the Barbadian case particularly urgent is the gulf between perception and reality, between the image the government projects and the conditions it tolerates.
To close that gap, the government must do more than tweak policies or reshuffle committees. It must show the same moral courage at home that it demands from the international system.
It must center the voices of the vulnerable, prioritize genuine reform, and build institutions that can withstand public scrutiny and deliver real results.
Barbados is indeed at a tipping point. The question is not whether we can avoid falling, but whether we are willing to face the truth that for too long, the applause abroad has muffled the cries at home.
Stefan Newton is a Barbadian national, a UK Chevening Scholar. He is a graduate of The University of the West Indies Faculty of Law, American University Washington College of Law and Queen Mary University of London Centre for Commercial Legal Studies.
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Which really makes me question as usual “is there any link between tourism and crime”? Barbados’ product continue to thrive.
VOICES FROM THE GHETTO – CRYING
By Singing Sandra
The sun rises slowly over the hills,
Everywhere is golden sunlight but still
Most nights with sad tales are crowded
Their days with dark clouds are shrouded
They don’t smile and they never will,
Only vultures get their fill.
Empty promises is what they hear
No running water from year to year
Hearts that know one desire –
That if there is a Messiah,
Someday He’d hear their whispered prayer.
Cupboard always bare and scanty
Ten people in a one-bedroom shanty
Forced to sell on the pavement
No vacancies, no employment
Can’t tell firecracker from gunshot
Blood does flow when things get hot
Ah ‘fraid to look out mih window
To hear voices from the ghetto…
Result oriented politicians like Donald Trump are hard to come by. Flashy politicians with no results are failures.
Sad but true. We shining abroad but struggling to fix the problems right here.
You can’t build a nation on applause abroad and silence at home.
Antigua looking sweet from the outside, but inside hurting bad.
Me tired of hearing bout gunshots every week. When the fix coming?
A simple Google search tell us that gun violence is now a problem that is afflicting all Caribbean countries. It is not a Barbadian phenomenon, as some would like to portray it.
Mottley’s government has done more than any other to tackle it. It has addressed the lack of scanners at the Port, doubled the number of Judges, toughen the penalties for gun crimes and amended the bail Act and provided the Police with more resources.
Perhaps the writer should tell us what is missing from that list.
Is this really from Nikii the wannabe reporter or from Ninkii the stinky? Or are they one and the same load of 💩?
Too many foreigners now.
The SCOTUS – the Supreme Court of the United States just gave the present Trump administration, the rights and authority to deport those, that they don’t want in America, including criminals of all sorts to any third Nation they want to.
Quite possibly, and it has been alleged, that some Caribbean Nations have already agreed to accept the USA criminals and those that have not agreed to, as of yet are been threatened with sanctions.
Gun manufacturers are not held liable for their products sold, unlike vehicle, food, and most other products manufactured for consumers. Therefore, the guns will keep finding their way into the streets of the Caribbean to boost THE WAR IN THE STREETS, by the thugs in the streets controlled by those, in the purported upper echelons of the society.
There’s no two ways about this. What is now transpiring in the Caribbean Nations, the growth and proliferation of the GANG CULTURE, which is rooted in the North American Cultures of GANGSTERISM is not happening in these island Nations by MISTAKE, but by DESIGN.
It’s as clear, as #Snow_In_Salmon, that the same game which was ran on HUEmans, of DARKER HUES from the late 19th Century to present in North America is now being played on Caribbean Nations, and they’re using the same playbook.
STARVE THE DOGS, THEN THROW THEM SCRAPS TO KEEP THEM FIGHTING EACH OTHER.
Jumbee_Picknee aka Ras Smood
De’ole Dutty Peg🦶🏽Garrat_Bastard
Vere Edwards
Interesting perspective STEPHEN NEWTON.MOTTLEY is an ARROGANT, POMPOUS, LOUD MOUTH BULL SHITTER.I hope G.B digest the above article it is right at his door step.
What’s missing: Accountability. Custom officers who are part of the government are bought and paid to turn a blind eyes. Without accomplices from inside, the guns cannot filter through. Scanners are not sufficient to stop officers from collaborating and resisting the temptation of bribery. Whatever system you put in place, must account for that human flaw. Otherwise, it is moronic.
@Vico…
1…while the HUEman(human) factor does play a significant role, in the detection processes at our ports of entry, it will do very little, to stop the movement of weapons such as guns throughout the region.
(i)…the region is well known for piracy and smuggling for centuries. Therefore, most contrabands, drugs, weapons etc are brought into these island Nations due to their wide open high seas and porous borders.
The Caribbean, CARICOM, OECS much less independent Nations don’t even have a proper Merchant Marine Service with outfitted surveillance vessels (personnel & equipment). We still rely on the Americans to patrol our open seas.
2…some of the things which are needed are very strick laws and punishment for even first time offenders who’re caught with #unregistered NOT illegal (guns are not illegal) FIREARM, ammo etc., regardless, of their age.
3…we need a Prison System in the Caribbean similar to the FEDERAL PRISON Systems in North & South America.
There are enough small islands dotting the Caribbean which can be converted to FEDERAL PRISONS where convicts from ALL CARICOM, OECS Nations can be housed.
This is one project which CARICOM or the OECS must undertake to help to ease the burden of having one Nation bear the entire burden.
It should fall under the umbrella, of the CCJ.
4…There should be. CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT by CARICOM, OECS, against several of the GUN MANUFACTURERS, in particular, those whose weapons are the gun of choice for these street thugs. I know, this one is far fetched.
Jumbee_Picknee aka Ras Smood
De’ole Dutty Peg🦶🏾Garrat_Bastard
Vere Edwards
Generally a well written article.
But some pertinent factors that have to be taken into account are as follows :
*From the time the Mottley Administration took office in 2018 it began to repair the damage done to the social fabric by the previous Government, by doing such things as reinstating free University Education, and increasing the financial support to BCC, Polytechnic, TVET etc in order to bolster the intake of students.
Duting the DLP decade these institutions were starved of funding, resulting in many youth who should have been in education and training institutions ending up on the block and becoming alienated from their society.
*Simultaneously, the Administration started new popular training programmes like the National Training Initiative (NTI), and, in more recent times, the Construction Gateway programme..
*The Mottley Administration also immediately addressed national security deficiencies by, for example, purchasing and installing new metal scanners at the Ports. The previous Administration had left Barbados totally exposed by permitting the scanners at the Port to become dysfunctional
*And so far as the amount of time it is taking to institute the promised educational reform is concerned, we have to factor in that we were hit by a COVID 19 Epidemic between early 2020 and late 2022.
*The Administration also has to be given credit for moving with alacrity to establish a Ministry with responsibility for Crime Reduction in 2022
Let us recall how this happened :
We had a very troubling spate of homicides in the early months of 2022. The Government reacted quickly and by the middle of the year had set up the new Ministry and put Corey Lane in place as Minister.
The Minister commenced upon his work, but of course it took some time to get his prograame in place.
By the end of the year – 2022–we recorded 43 homicides for that year.
However, in 2023, we seemingly began to see the effect of the new Ministry’s work, for by the end of 2023 the homicide rate was halved — down to 21
Unfortunately this proved to be a temporary downward trend, for we had another explosion of homicides in 2024, and recorded 49 for that year.
A particularly troubling aspect of the matter is the phenomenon of alienated young and relatively young men inflicting deadly violence on each other.
We could help to ameliorate the situation in the short term with more Police presence etc, but the fundamental solution will have to be more long term and will have to focus on social, educational and cultural reforms.
And all of us will have to play a role.
Too many non nationals I.e jamaicans are in barbados and growing number of haitians. This is not the time for free movement. The antigua PM said and I agree focus on your people first invest in them support them.
The guns are coming in on the private yachts at the private marinas.
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