BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (CMC) — Barbados Attorney General Adriel Brathwaite has sought to allay fears that the island is experiencing an upsurge in criminal activity, insisting that crime has not “really” risen here.

Speaking at the launch of the Citizen Security Facilities Project on Friday, Brathwaite acknowledged that “last year was not a good year for crime in Barbados”.

He said an examination of the newspapers, social media as well as the mainstream media seemed to suggest that the island was “under attack by the criminal elements”.

But he said while there was a seven per cent increase in reported crime last year compared with 2014 figures, the fact was 2014 was a “special year”.

“In 2014, there was actually a decline of 14 per cent in crime on 2013 figures. But if you look at the statistics over the last couple of years, last year reported crime was below the average over the last six or seven years,” he said.

Brathwaite said that the Freundel Stuart Government accepted that the level of gun violence was a cause for concern, and that there was a higher number of murders last year than over the previous five years.