Willoughby: Crime Fight A Whole-Of-Country Approach

Barbadians have been reminded that the crime fight must be a whole-of-island approach, and not solely the responsibility of criminal justice agencies.

Director of the Criminal Justice Research and Planning Unit (CJRPU), Cheryl Willoughby, shared this reminder as she she addressed the opening of the CJRPU’s Strategic Meeting to discuss the First Quarter Crime Reports from the Barbados Crime Observatory and the Preliminary Findings of Research on the Fear of Crime, at the Warrens Suite, Baobab Towers.

Mrs. Willoughby pointed out that the resources within government and non-governmental agencies were not infinite. Therefore, she proffered the view that if stakeholders came together and pooled their resources, they could do a lot more to address the crime situation in Barbados.

The Director said she was disturbed, like many Barbadians, about what is happening among the island’s young men. “I am the mother of a son too, and when we can have 17-year-olds charged with murder and gun-related offences, it tells us that there is something going on…within the family structure that we need to examine.

“Also, when we have inmates who are challenged…in terms of their reading, writing and literacy skills, we have a problem in terms of our educational system. We need to look at it [and] it may need reforming,” she told her audience.

Explaining that a study was conducted on the superannuation, expulsion, and suspension of students from secondary schools, Mrs. Willoughby said some of the children ended up interfacing with the criminal justice system.

“So, we also have to look at how we…attend to children who may be having behavioural problems. We may need to look at the prospect of having social interventions early, [and] not wait until the students are at secondary school to recognise that they need intervention and to address any learning deficits that they may have, whether at primary school or at secondary school,” she stated.

The Director shared that when she worked as a police officer, she found that a lot of the behaviours attributed to normal adolescents were drug related.

“Some of these children were actually having issues with substance abuse, especially marijuana. So that is also something that we have to examine. We have the National Council on Substance Abuse that is working within the schools and…communities to address that issue, and we stand ready to assist them, wherever possible, with the research that is necessary for them…to do targeted prevention,” she indicated.

Mrs. Willoughby surmised that officials must work with children from as early as primary school, as research shows this is necessary. She added that they must work with communities experiencing social disorganisation.

“If we can address these criminogenic issues, these risk factors, I believe that we have a good chance of turning around what we see happening within Barbados. Barbados is too small for us to be trending in the direction that we are trending in,” she said.

Additionally, she stated that it was necessary to examine the role young women were playing in crime and violence, and hinted that research in that area would be done in the future.  

“Women were previously perceived as caregivers, but now I’m seeing a lot of violence occurring among our girls – the fights and so on. So, we need to look and see how we can put that into a scientific study to actually be able to target our young women. So that’s something that we will do,” shedisclosed.

Mrs. Willoughbyfurther revealed that the National Victimisation Survey had started, and it was being conducted by the Centre for Criminal Justice and Security at The University of the West Indies.  

She explained that the study aims to unearth unreported crime, so that in addition to the official crime statistics, it would help the authorities to better understand the crime situation. (PR/GIS)