I’ve been collecting, compiling and posting information on homicides in Barbados for a few years now. In addition to my monthly homicide analysis posts, I also maintain an online database covering the period 2015 to 2025, which now includes 380 homicides. The Database tracks several fields — age, parish, day of the week, and the month in which each homicide occurred.
For this post, I’m looking at the full ten-year period to show how many homicides took place in each calendar month. The chart below shows the totals for all months combined across the decade (click to enlarge):
(SIDE NOTE: Please look at the methodology page of the Barbados Homicide Website to learn more about the methodology behind my database).
A few points stand out immediately to me. Some months, such as June, August, May and November, account for noticeably higher totals over the ten-year period. Others fall closer to the middle or lower range.
December is particularly notable. Given the Christmas and holiday season — a period when social activity, travel, and spending typically increase — one might expect higher numbers of crimes (but not all crimes result in a homicide). Instead, December recorded 23 homicides across the full dataset, placing it on the lower end compared to several other months.
The purpose of this post is simply to present the aggregated month-by-month totals in one place and to look at December specifically. As always, please remember that my figures are not official; they’re compiled from publicly available sources (which means they may be understated), i.e., mainly mainstream media reports and updates posted by the Barbados Police Service on Facebook.