Barbadians want “an eye for an eye” and a return of the noose – based on the results of the latest Nation-commissioned CADRES survey.
Seventy-nine per cent of all respondents polled believe that swinging of the gallows is the way for this country to go, in the wake of a recent worrying crime wave.
The survey was carried out in the aftermath of the Tudor Street tragedy in which six young women perished in a set fire at the popular Campus Trendz store on September 3.
That incident, following closely on the heels of the robbery and burning of Chicken Galore in Bank Hall, St Michael, in August, and served to reignite public debate on whether Barbados, having last carried out an execution in 1984, should resume hangings.
Only 17 per cent of those polled were actually opposed to capital punishment.
However, death penalty support for some remains conditional. Half of the respondents expressed the view that it should only be meted out for certain types of murder, while 29 per cent indicated their unconditional support for hanging. The remaining four per cent were either unsure, or preferred not to say.
In presenting his analysis of the findings, pollster Peter Wickham pointed out that the survey was carried out during a period of national outrage, which he compared to the public’s response to a 1999 crime wave.
This would explain the strong correlation with the results of the two previous surveys carried out in 1999 and 2004, when national death penalty support stood at 82 per cent and 65 per cent respectively.
Barbadians are also in strong support of the reintroduction of corporal punishment.
