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Average Age of Homicide (2015-2025)

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Data prepared by Amit @barbadoscrimeblog.

One of the benefits of having a database that now spans a full decade of homicides—and currently includes 380 cases—is that I can start to ask questions that only long-term data might help to answer. Some of these questions are simple, some are more detailed, and some are probably only interesting to me. One of the straightforward ones I looked at recently was the average age of victims each year. Of the 380 cases, I have age data for 365 individuals, or 96%):

(SIDE NOTE: Please look at the methodology page of the Barbados Homicide Website to learn more about the methodology behind my database).

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25 responses to “Average Age of Homicide (2015-2025)”

  1. David Avatar
    David

    The average age is on the decline?

  2. David Avatar
    David

    The BPS found a decomposed body on December 12, 2025. Should we treat as a homicide or wait?

    “The Barbados Police Service has confirmed the discovery of a decomposed male body in Applewaithe, St. George.

    Officers have cordoned off the area as investigations are now underway. Meanwhile, curious onlookers have gathered at the scene as word of the discovery spread quickly throughout the community.”

  3. David Avatar
    David

    There is always a heavy focus on what the political directorate view as the big ticket item of economic development, BUT, the social impacts on society is as important. It was a slogan but it rings true? – a “Society Is More Than An Economy.”

    https://barbadosunderground.net/2010/11/18/uk-prime-minister-david-cameron-identifies-factors-other-than-the-economy-for-well-being-late-prime-minister-david-thompson-said-barbadian-society-is-more-than-an-economy/

  4. Terence Blackett Avatar
    Terence Blackett

    BRASSBADOS IS CURRENTLY RUNNING AN AVERAGE OF SOME 42.785 MURDERS PER YEAR OF POPULATION COUNT OF ‘almost’ 290,000 WHICH IS 1 IN EVERY 6,678 PERSON

    At least 121,695 people were “MURDERED” in Latin America & the Caribbean during 2024, putting the median homicide rate at around 20.2 per 100,000 people, about the same rate as 2023 (cited in the study below)!!!

    Key Countries & Recent Data (Rates per 100,000):

    Haiti: Faced extreme violence, with rates reaching around 62 in 2024, largely due to gang control & chaos after the presidential assassination!!!

    Jamaica: Consistently high, with rates around 40.1 (2023) or even 49.44, though recent efforts showed declines!!!

    Trinidad & Tobago: Also among the highest, with rates around 45.7 in recent years!!!

    St Lucia & St Vincent & the Grenadines: These smaller islands can see extremely high rates due to small populations, with St Lucia hitting 39 & St Vincent 53.7!!!

    Turks & Caicos Islands: A very small territory, it recorded an exceptionally high rate of 103.1, showing how small populations skew rates!!!

    Last year it recorded 48 homicides, which, given its population is less than 50,000, gave it the worst murder rate per capita in Latin America & the Caribbean…

    SEE: https://insightcrime.org/news/insight-crime-2024-homicide-round-up/

    DOES ANYONE IN THEIR RIGHT MINDZ TRULY BELIEVE THAT THIS IS SUSTAINABLE???

    Without #DivineIntervention, as “The Bushman” often opines: “OUR ARSE IS GRASS”!!!

    #WhatAWorld

  5. David Avatar
    David

    @TB

    Define ‘sustainable’?

  6. Donna Avatar
    Donna

    Jamaica, through its combination of social programmes and improved policing, has recorded a forty percent decrease in murders this year.

    But Marseilles in France is recording alarming increases in poverty–stricken immigrant communities, mostly from former French colonies. Their proposed solutions seem to be missing the social component. Far-rightness will likely take over, do the Donald and shut down non-white, non–Western immigration altogether.

    The Caribbean islands are mostly without significant natural resources, therefore requiring our governments and people to be significantly better than average in order to rise from the ground, especially with the world’s white supremacist knee ever present on our neck.

    But alas, this fact has never penetrated our glitching brains. It lingers on the surface of our consciousness, leaving us with big expectations and little dedication.

    It appears that our government may be recognising that its members are running themselves and their families out of existence. Immigration doors are closing, even for them, as the usual haunts fear pale people becoming a minority in their nations. The Great Replacement Theory is now mainstream.

    We have ramped up agricultural education and training, hurried efforts at educational transformation in a technological world, modernisation of the police service, community policing, focus on vulnerable families. Preventative measures that should have been employed decades ago!

    But even if well‐intended, properly conceived and implemented, (wuhlaus) it will take a while to catch this runaway horse and rein him in.

    So, the answer is NO, it is not sustainable, but yes, there is a chance for survival, if we buy in and apply ourselves as needed.

    Unfortunately, until corruption in high places is wrestled to the ground, I can see no widespread faith being kindled in our people. Many will see it as making mock sport at we.

    I am hoping somebody can tell me if it is in fact the owner of the totally unqualified company which delayed the installation of the money-saving cancer treatment device at the QEH by more than a year who is running in a recently vacated seat in our House of Assembly. I had heard before that he was a canvasser for the BLP in that constituency in the last general election.

    If this is so, I call upon the people of St. Joseph to write in a vote for a new candidate – The Green Monkey! I am certain they can see better than most that his constituents are multiplying, flourishing and thriving in Barbados!

    A message has to be sent!

  7. David Avatar
    David

    @Donna

    Wow.

  8. BAJE Avatar
    BAJE

    Jamaica, through its combination of social programmes and improved policing, has recorded a forty percent decrease in murders this year.

    XXXXXXXXX

    FAR FAR FROM FACTS.

    THE JAMAICA POLICE HAS KILLED SO FAR IN 2025 SO CALLED BAD BOYS SOME INNOCENT ALMOST 300.

    THIS 300 DOES NOT APPEAR IN THEIR MURDER TALLIES AND TREATED SEPERATELY.

    Police record 20+ fatal shootings for 12 straight months

    https://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/lead-stories/20251203/police-record-20-fatal-shootings-12-straight-months

  9. More Doom and Gloom Avatar
    More Doom and Gloom

    10 years of gun violence is following trends of 30+ years in other places
    homicides rates go up and people and become desensitized over time
    one generation later it becomes a cultural norm in news and entertainment
    two generations on it has crossed over across all of society
    Barbados was sheltered but not immune

  10. Pachamama Avatar
    Pachamama

    Weeee are all guilty as charged!

    This unserious attitude toward murder!

    Today at Bondi Beach in Australia a few said to be Salafist Muslims were videoed killing some beachgoers, some said to be Jews or Zionists. Nobody in the West will play up that the man who disarmed the scooter was himself a Muslim.

    Simplistic narratives become to complicated for this kind of a contradiction. All Muslims must be murders of Jews, White people, not there is not cause. A West which has Afrika full of terrorist warriors seeking continued destabilisation in resource wars.

    Of these murders Donald Drumpf said that it was a bad day. This is s man still planning to kill Venezuelans for their oil, as by god-given rite.

    His socalled peace plan has not stopped Netanyahu from murdering Palestinians in the West Bank nor Gaza by the dozens daily, and these crimes are not broadcasted as we would imagine the murders of Zionist in Australia were today.

    Even as Australia is moving heaven and earth to complete the genocide of the Aboriginal prople of that land.
    But murder is not murder when others carry them out. Those are the righteous murderers.

    Netanyahu right away blame these murders on Iran. Iran a devoutly Shiite state which is seen by the the Salafists as unbelievers because they do not interpret the Koran in the extreme fashion that Salafists do.

    But Netanyahu himself, aided by the Americans, the Europeans, the Gulf Arabs, Turkeye and others only last year installed a head-chopping, racist, Christian-killing Takfari call Jolani in Damascus. He and the West has a terrorist running a country.

    Murder incorporated!

  11. Donna Avatar
    Donna

    I won’t quibble about the Jamaican statistics. I could quote statistics from other studies that show that a combination of social programmes and improved policing does work.

    The point being made is valid still.

  12. David Avatar
    David

    IRRESPONSIBLE! – An incensed member of the Police Service Commission (PSC) has described Prime Minister Mia Mottley’s recent attack on the body for its handling of promotions in the Royal Barbados Police Force (RBPF) as highly irresponsible. Retired Deputy Commissioner of Police and former top crime sleuth Keith Whittaker has taken Prime Minister Mottley to task for the statements she made last Friday at a news conference at Parliament Buildings to address the current upsurge in gun violence in the island. Mottley launched a verbal assault on the then Guyson Mayers-led PSC as she promised to deal with the issue of promotion which she said had eroded the morale within the police force. “We are satisfied that the greatest cannibalization of the Royal Barbados Police Force took place in the last few years. It cannot be allowed to happen again. You cannot attack an institution and expect it to prosper…You cannot have successive Commissioners of Police making recommendations for promotions in the police force based on their perceptions of performance and merit and discipline, and then have a Police Service Commission completely ignoring those recommendations and choosing to promote who they want on criteria known only to them,” she told reporters. But in an equally strident rebuke, Whittaker, who represents the interests of the force on the PSC, this morning lambasted the PM Mottley for lumping everyone on that constitutional body and labelling them in the same manner. “It is a very irresponsible act…and it is not fair to get on national TV and lambast the Police Service Commission without being aware of all the facts,” the respected former senior cop told Barbados TODAY. Noting that he was not a political person, the retired senior police officer said it was sad that Barbados had come to this juncture. “I am not interested in no politician or no political party. I am interested in Barbados and the Royal Barbados Police Force. And that is what I am trying to do on the PSC. I am transparent in everything that I do. Tell her that. If they find the chairman [former] political, that is a matter [for them]; I am not political,” Whittaker stressed. Whittaker told Barbados TODAY he was hurt by the Prime Minister’s comments. “After serving 40 years in the Royal Barbados Police Force, it hurts me to know the excellent service that I gave in the force and then I could be pulled in the gutter by the Prime Minister lambasting the PSC…putting all in one basket. I am not in that,” he declared. Whittaker, who was in charge of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) for lengthy periods during his four decades in the force and linked to the apprehension of some of Barbados’ most notorious criminals, sought to defend his reputation as a “professional”. “I have a proper character…integrity…I serve; I get shot at; I get dynamite pelt at me for fighting for this country; I get urinated on while waiting for criminals … for this country… and then to be labelled like that. I’m annoyed. “All of these things I did for this country, then to be lambasted by a Prime Minister. It is wrong…to me. I’m hurt,” he lamented. Meanwhile, Whittaker told Barbados TODAY he was not sure if the Prime Minister had consulted with the PSC on the appointment of former Commissioner of Police Darwin Dottin to be a consultant to the sitting COP Tyrone Griffith. The PSC, which is headed by new chairperson Margot Greene QC, is responsible for advising the Governor General on appointments in the police force, and to remove and exercise disciplinary control over persons holding or acting in such offices. Apart from Greene and Whittaker, the other members of the commission are the Reverend Vaughn Watson, Neville Lewis and Shirley Farnum. This is the first time that a retired commissioner of police has been returned as a consultant to the force and/or government on matters related to crime. The Police Act makes no provisions for the appointment of such a consultant to a sitting Commissioner of Police nor obliges a sitting Commissioner of Police to adhere to any advice given by a civilian consultant. Neither former PSC chairman Guyson Mayers nor current chairman Greene could be reached for comment.

  13. Artax Avatar
    Artax

    Donna

    There isn’t any need to “quibble about the Jamaican statistics.”

    Persons killed as a result of police operations are not usually included in murder statistics unless those killings are proven to be, for example, extrajudicial, deliberate, or a breach of the police use of force policy.

    The Jamaica Gleaner article referred to, indicated “as of December 1, 2025, the country has recorded 282 fatal police shootings…..”

    “With one year of consistent 20-plus fatal police shootings per month, the commission says the situation is a cause for concern.”

    The Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM) is probing the fatal shootings.

    The 282 persons killed by the Jamaican Constabulary Force, in its totality, would not be included in the murder rate, and therefore wouldn’t have any significant positive or negative impact on the statistics you referenced.

    You’ll have to wait until the results of those investigations to determine whether or not the police shootings were unlawful or justified.

  14. Artax Avatar
    Artax

    @ David

    The PSC under Guyson Mayers made some very terrible political decisions relative to the then RBPF.

    They changed the qualifying prerequisite for Deputy Commissioner, overlooked the police officer who already had that specific qualification and was acting in the position, to appoint Erwin Boyce soon after his return to Barbados, after sending him to the UK to pursue the course.

    Then there was the issue with promotions.

    I believe this was the first time in the history of RBPF that a PSC undermined the authority of a Commissioner of Police.

    Is Whittaker suggesting Mayers acted autonomously when those decisions were made?

    If not, then as a member of the Commission, he cannot declare himself free of blame, and must accept some responsibility.

  15. David Avatar
    David

    That is correct @Artax. We may be reaping the whirlwind.

  16. Donna Avatar
    Donna

    Artax,

    I knew all that. I’m pretty good at statistics when I care to be. I just don’t have your patience sometimes. Some days I let things slide.

    Only a fool would deny that a combination of social programmes and improved policing would reduce violent crime. I did not think I had to belabour the point.

    I believe we could examine Baltimore right now with Governor Wes Moore and the young black mayor, a community leader, apparently reaping much success. Glasgow is another much cited case in which violent crime was treated as a public health emergency to great effect, if I remember correctly.

    But even without statistics we can use basic knowledge of human nature and behaviour and common sense to prove the point. So… vulnerable communities are called vulnerable for a reason. What is it that makes us see them as vulnerable? At-risk youth are so‐called for a reason. Does anybody believe that it is merely their genes that put them at risk? We know that we are all some combination of our nature and our nurture. The environment around us fashions us to a greater or lesser extent, depending on our inherent mental strength or weakness. Those around us can bring out the best or the worst in us. Therefore it stands to reason that well thought out and executed social interventions can have some impact on the level of violent crime.

    As for improved policing … duh!

    Thanks for picking up the slack!

  17. Artax Avatar
    Artax

    @ David

    Another issue, David, is Whittaker’s comment about him not being “sure if the Prime Minister had consulted with the PSC on the appointment of former Commissioner of Police Darwin Dottin to be a consultant to the sitting COP Tyrone Griffith.”

    Why would the PM have to consult the PSC, if Dottin’s appointment as Consultant on Crime was in the Attorney General’s Office, and not an appointment as an EMPLOYEE of the then RBPF?

  18. David Avatar
    David

    In our culture @Artax all roads lead to the prime minister. The ministers are puppets that dance to the beat of the PM if they want to stay on the right side.

  19. Artax Avatar
    Artax

    @ David

    “All roads lead to the prime minister,” which some sources describe as ‘centrality of leadership,’ is not only a culture in Barbados, but in the other regional territories as well.

    What surprised me, is the extent to which such a culture rises, and adversarial nature of politics in islands such as Antigua/Barbuda, and St. Kitts/Nevis, where adversary between members of the mainstream political parties is not confined to Parliament, similarly to Barbados, but extends in the wider society among supporters as well, leading to intense rivalry.

    In St. Kitts/Nevis, there wasn’t ‘much room’ for neutrality or impartiality. You were either supportive of St. Kitts-Nevis Labour Party (SKNLP), or People’s Action Movement (PAM).

    However, adversarial politics is a deeply entrenched political culture inherited from the Westminster model.

  20. David Avatar
    David

    @Artax

    Your observation is a case study how the political directorate is able to influence and direct minds and behaviour in regular folks.

  21. Artax Avatar
    Artax

    Donna

    Another excellent contribution.

    I understood the gist of your December 14, 2025, at 9:05 am contribution, but was surprised it being dismissed as ‘far from facts,’ and more so when the article presented as evidence proved otherwise.

    Crime was once viewed as a social construct. Some people argued it’s because of the associated social issues.
    That crime is defined by social norms, since behaviours and actions are not inherently criminal, but are labelled as such by the political hierarchy within a social context.

    The functionalist perspective is that crime is inevitable because not everyone can abide by the norms and values that are predetermined by the society.

    However, I’ve realised that, in some societies, crime is increasingly viewed as a public health issue, and there is a progressive shift from focusing mainly on punishment to prevention, through early intervention and community development.

    Also, addressing the social determinants of health, which are non-medical factors existing in the environments where people are born, live, grow, work, etc.
    The social determinants of crime and the social determinants of health are broadly similar, because of the shared root causes of crime.

    Economic instability, such as poverty, lack of educational opportunities, and unemployment, for example, are said to initiate health problems, and issues that create environments conducive for criminal activity.

  22. Artax Avatar
    Artax

    “Your observation is a case study how the political directorate is able to influence and direct minds and behaviour in regular folks.”

    @ David

    Not only the political directorate, but some of those individuals who are labelling themselves as so-called activists and social media influencers as well.

    You’ll be surprised at how these people influence other less informed persons as well.

    For example, there is a so-called ‘activist,’ named Winston ‘Brutal Bob’ Clarke, who has been spewing misinformation in his YouTube videos.

    When confronted and told he should at least conduct a bit of research before posting his videos, he accused those individuals of being BLP supporters, and that his information comes from Caswell Franklyn, “the best trade unionist in Barbados.”

    He said the current BLP administration borrowed a significant amount of money from the NIS, which was subsequently ‘written off.’
    I believe he was referring to debt restructuring, which affected funds borrowed for various purposes by the previous DLP administration.

    I’m sure Franklyn wouldn’t have given him this information.

    Clarke went on to make other pronouncements that clearly indicated a lack of thorough research, including reading the NISS Act.

    He essentially presented shiite as truth, while gaining ‘thumb ups’ and praises of telling the truth from his less informed ‘followers.’

  23. David Avatar
    David

    LOL@Artax you should post this comment on one of his ‘come out tings’ video.

  24. Artax Avatar
    Artax

    @ David

    Forgot to add Clarke also said the current BLP administration INCREASED the pensionable age from 65 years to the current age of 67, which is incorrect.

    To quote him verbatim:

    “Now, what they have done, is they have raised the pensionable age. You would have seen Colin Jordan, in a statement on the media, speaking about the subtle raise of the pensionable age. now when they spoke about it at first, there was a lot of uproar among the populace.
    But we receded a bit, and now they ease it in, they easing it in. I’ll tell you why this is very unfair to us. Now you people who work…… when you first start working, you started to pay national insurance, with the understanding that when you reach 65, you will retire and go off into the sunset with your pension to support you in your elderly age.
    It is like a contractual agreement with your workplace and with NIS that when you reach 65, or some people 60, you’re going to finish…… you started paying your national insurance already.
    As I said, it is like a contractual agreement, so they cannot come mid-contract and then tell you, while you are working, while you have already started paying that they are going to raise it…… they can’t do that…… you understand, it would be illegal….. they cannot do that.”

    The NIS pensionable age was 65 years old in 2005. In 2006, the DLP introduced a long-term plan, to gradually increase the pensionable age, raising it to 66 years by 2010, and continuing to 67 by 2018.

    …… January 2006 – December 2009: age 65 ½
    …… January 2010 – December 2013: age 66
    …… January 2014 – December 2017: age 66 ½
    …… From January 2018: age 67

    Nowadays, any idiot with access to an android device can become ‘famous’ simply by making a YouTube video, talking shiite, while impressing those persons who are even more clueless than him/her.

  25. David Avatar
    David

    @Artax

    Recently the pension eligibility chart was recirculated and the blogmaster was surprised at the number of people clueless that it was old news.

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