Laura Camacho and Sagrario Ortega |
Madrid (EFE).- Are our cities and towns safe? The Spaniards believe so, since only 0.7 percent see citizen insecurity as the main problem. In fact, in the general list of concerns it is ranked 19th, according to the latest barometer from the Center for Sociological Research (CIS).
And if crime is compared with that of the countries around us, Spain fares well, with a rate of 48.8 crimes per thousand inhabitants compared to 79.5 in the United Kingdom, 74.8 in Belgium, the 60.7 from Germany or 53.9 from Denmark.
However, some crimes have aroused social concern and even political debate ahead of the 28M elections: sexual assaults, home squatting, and others more circumscribed to specific territories, such as brawls between youth gangs, drug trafficking or robberies in the countryside.
Sexual and minor assaults
In recent months there have been reports of sexual assaults carried out by groups of minors in which young boys participate, several of them even under 14 years of age.
The State Attorney General’s Office warned in its latest report of the “progressive and important” increase in sexual crimes with minors involved: 2,625 open procedures in 2021, compared to the 1,271 registered five years earlier.
They were figures for crimes allegedly committed by boys between the ages of 14 and 17, because when the aggressors are younger, the cases are archived. However, there are and they have come to light as the sexual assault of an 11-year-old girl in a shopping center in Badalona (Barcelona) at the hands of three minors under 14 years of age.
A month ago, another 12 young people, seven of them under 13 years of age, were identified in Logroño for their alleged involvement in a group attack on two girls aged 12 and 13, with whom they had contacted through social networks.
Around with the squatting
Squatting has been one of the two-way issues in the political debate, used by the opposition to denounce that the Government, especially Unidas Podemos, encourages the phenomenon and protects the squatters.
Meanwhile, the Executive and its partners reply to the right-wing parties that use squatting as electoral ammunition loaded with hoaxes with the sole objective of generating fear among citizens.
From the Interior and without differentiating between burglaries (when a habitual residence is squatted, be it a first or second residence) or usurpations (squatting of properties owned by banks or empty houses) the data shows that this crime has decreased by 11% in the first quarter, with a total of 3,898 compared to 4,385 a year ago.
Catalonia, with 1,673, is the community with the most squats, well above the 594 in Andalusia.
In 2022, crimes of this type known to the security forces registered the first decrease in the last five years, 16,726 compared to 17,274 in 2021.
The violent escalation of youth gangs
After a few years of inactivity, the violent escalation of youth gangs has become one of the main threats to the security of the Community of Madrid, but also of some neighboring municipalities in the provinces of Toledo and Guadalajara.
The alarm grew when, on the first weekend of February last year, two young people between the ages of 15 and 25 were murdered the same night in two brawls between the Dominican Don’t Play (DDP) and the Trinitarians.
Since then, another five young people have lost their lives as a result of the confrontation between these gangs in the Madrid region, some of them even by shots, in a further step in their extreme violence.
Something of particular concern, as well as the recruitment of increasingly younger members -even 10, 11 and 12 years old- and the greater presence of girls.
The narco that does not stop
Despite the continuous police coups, drug trafficking continues to be one of the main concerns in many Spanish municipalities. It is not in vain, a large part of the hashish and cocaine consumed in Europe passes through Spain.
Drug trafficking continues to be installed in Spanish regions, including the Campo de Gibraltar or some areas of Galicia, as a livelihood for a good number of families.
Putting an end to it does not seem like an easy task, although the attempts by the administrations have produced good results, such as the Special Security Plan for the Campo de Gibraltar launched by the Ministry of the Interior.
Proof of this is the balance of 2022, a year in which 4,698 operations were carried out that resulted in 5,827 detainees/investigated and almost 272 tons of drugs seized.
The stop to thefts in the field
And in the rural world, thefts in agricultural and livestock farms, mainly machinery, are worrying. To put a stop to them, the Civil Guard launched the so-called ROCA teams a few years ago.
Last year, these teams knew of 9,693 crimes of agricultural and livestock theft, compared to 8,238 in 2021, which represents a rate of 12 robberies per thousand farms located in the demarcation of the armed institute. However, they barely represent 1.57 percent of the total crimes known to this body.
95.15 percent of the total of these offenses occur in Andalusia, Castilla-La Mancha, Extremadura, Murcia, Castilla y León, the Valencian Community, Aragon, the Canary Islands and La Rioja.
Only last year, 1,965 people were arrested or investigated for these crimes, 13% more than twelve months earlier. 72% of them were of Spanish nationality, followed by Romanians (17%) and further behind by Moroccans (4%).