Long accustomed to being among world leaders when it comes to social development, Barbados is near the top of a less desirable global list of nations – the countries that imprison the highest percentage of their people.
According to the International Centre for Prison Studies, a British organization, few sovereign states and dependent territories lock up a higher rate of their people, based on the size of population, than Barbados.
In its 2013 analysis of prison populations, the centre stated that in December last year Barbados had 1 054 people behind bars, giving it an incarceration rate of 379 per 100 000 people. That, in turn, gave it a global ranking of 21st out of 223 nations and dependent territories across the globe.
The rate and ranking were based on a population of 278 000 at December 2012, a figure provided to the centre by Barbados.
But Barbados was not alone in the Caribbean. More than half of the states in the top 25 list worldwide were in the Caribbean.
They ranged from St Kitts and Nevis, the United States Virgin Islands, Cuba, Anguilla, Belize and Grenada to Bermuda, Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda, the Cayman Islands, St Vincent and St Maarten.
