A rare, forthcoming poll of Haitians inside Haiti not surprisingly finds they want to be rid of their horrific gang violence — but also reflects key priorities like fixing education and other social institutions whose collapse helped spawn the country’s gang rule in the first place.
Even so, the survey shows widespread rejection of any amnesty for gang members once public security is ever restored in Haiti.
WLRN got an advance look at the poll, conducted in May by the London-based international affairs think tank Chatham House and QQ Research Consultants in Miami Lakes. It comes on what may be the eve of mass deportations of Haitians in the U.S. back to Haiti
Any extensive, in-person polling in Haiti is dangerous given the country’s violent gang rule — and 81% of the more than 1,330 people interviewed across the country said neutralizing the gangs was among their most vital concerns.
But a slight majority believe security has actually improved somewhat this year, as international police support missions begin to confront the criminal groups that now control 90% of the capital, Port-au-Prince, and much of the rest of Haiti.
Still, while a plurality of Haitians in the poll support a new, U.S.- and U.N.-funded multinational Gang Suppression Force to assist Haiti’s overwhelmed national police, little more than a third think it will succeed.
The gangs are on pace to commit more than 6,000 murders this year, according to the U.N., as well as hundreds of rapes of women and girls, and their violence is responsible for leaving 1.5 million Haitians displaced as homeless refugees.
READ MORE: Is it a human rights violation to deport Haitian TPS holders to a cauldron of gang violence?
To address the broader roots of the gang crisis, though, almost 70 percent said Haiti’s threadbare public education and healthcare (the latter supplemented today by international nonprofits like Doctors Without Borders) also have to be fixed along with the gang plague.
“What’s telling is that Haitians have an understanding of what is necessary to re-secure their communities,” said Christopher Sabatini, director of Chatham House’s Latin America Programme.
“Security, yes, but also education, healthcare and formal jobs — how to integrate gang members back into society.”
Sabatini said that should also signal to “the international donor community and the GSF, that development assistance needs to proceed alongside the security mission — a policy of taking back and holding neighborhoods and filling the vacuum quickly and broadly with social services and investment.
“This should be a call,” Sabatini said, “for the U.N., when it discusses GSF renewal, to expand it to include development commitments.”
That reality is also relevant to the anticipated Trump administration deportations of possibly hundreds of thousands of Haitians in the U.S. who have now lost their Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, including more than 100,000 in South Florida.
READ MORE: Haitian TPS holders in South Florida brace for end of their legal status
“Despite the tragedy of TPS revocations,” Sabatini said, “the survey results may point to a possible opportunity.
“Many of those who would be returning have worked in healthcare in the U.S. and some in education. If there were a coordinated Haitian government and U.S. plan to offer them options in Haiti, while it won’t lessen their personal tragedy, it could help lessen Haitians’ tragedy in Haiti.”
Sabatini acknowledged that sort of project could be prohibitive until much more security is restored in Haiti — an argument that’s also being made amid efforts to extend Haitians’ TPS protections from deportation.
At the same time, however, looking toward Haiti’s post-gang future, just as many in the survey who support creating better education and other social opportunities also oppose any amnesty for gang members — even though nearly half are minors.
Sabatini cautioned that their stance shouldn’t also be read as a complete rejection “of the necessary process of re-integration for those determined to merit it — in particular those under 18 who were recruited and coerced into the gangs.”
But the poll’s report concedes the “lack of popular support” for the sort of selective amnesty and re-integration that have followed other conflicts in the hemisphere, like Colombia’s civil war, “will prove a challenge for the international community and the future of Haiti’s social fabric and future generations.”
One of the poll report’s chief recommendations, as a result, is “immediate steps to establish independent, efficient courts and humane, safe prisons,” especially for minors.
Either way, more than 80% said new elections must happen by the end of next year. Haiti has not been able to hold a presidential election in a decade — its last real president, Jovenel Moïse, was assassinated in 2021 — but the country’s interim government believes a vote can be held before the end of 2026, and this summer it has begun registering voters.
Most civil society groups on the ground in Haiti, however, insist there is still not a sufficient degree of security in the country to conduct a general election this year.
Much of that skepticism may also reflect Haitians’ feelings about the interim government itself: in the Chatham House/QQ Research Consultants survey, fewer than a fifth said they thought Haiti’s political class is working in their best interests.
Among the poll report’s other conclusions is that the U.N. and “a coalition of governments or stakeholders will need to call for and organize a long-overdue donors’ conference before 2027.”
