© Provided by Agencia EFE
Madrid, Feb 12 (EFE).- Jaime and Diego, aged 15 and 25, are the latest victims of a “third generation” of youth gangs in Spain that have intensified their violence in recent months. It is the result of having looked the other way when these young people, mostly minors, required education and support, according to the diagnosis of experts consulted by Efe.
After the three brawls between the Dominican Don’t Play (DDP) and the Trinidadians that at least converged last weekend in Madrid, leaving two dead and three stabbed in serious condition, a forceful response has not been long in coming.
Starting this Thursday, more than 500 police officers have been controlling the streets and parks of 11 districts of the capital and the municipality of Parla to stop possible reprisals and the escalation of violence detected last December, when operation “Hispano” was launched, which In just over three months, 118 detainees have been detained and dozens of weapons have been seized from these groups.
The Civil Guard has also deployed 834 agents in nine municipalities of the Community of Madrid to monitor the hot spots where they have detected a greater presence of these gangs.
However, the agents themselves, such as the inspector and spokesman for the Federal Police Union (UFP), José María Benito, lament that previously “something must have gone wrong” when the security forces have to prioritize a threat such as the one posed by these youth gangs, which at the end of 2021 had 80 active groups in the national territory, according to data from the Ministry of the Interior.
THIRD GENERATION OF GANG MEMBERS
They are under 13, 14 or 15 years old, like Jaime, the boy linked to the Trinitarians who was fatally stabbed with a machete by alleged members of the DDP on Atocha Street, although the Police have not yet been able to identify them.
And they are more violent because they want to demonstrate loyalty to their superiors. Urban group expert Joan Caballero defines these minors as the “third generation of gang members” in Spain, since the security and justice forces already had to quell their violence in 2003, when they emerged in the country, and in 2014, year in which the Supreme Court declared the criminal and illicit nature of Dominican Don’t Play (first and second generation).
Afterward, according to Caballero, society has not bothered to welcome these young people into the community, a large part of them of foreign origin or of immigrant parents, but with Spanish nationality – the latter represent 90 percent according to the Government delegate in Madrid, Mercedes González.
It is within the gangs where they have found the “feeling of belonging” that they lacked. “They feel like it’s their second family,” he says.
In fact, such a commitment to brotherhood is what leads them to show no scruples when it comes to committing crimes when their superiors so request, reaching the extreme of going to kill in cold blood.
Likewise, Joan Caballero points out that society, in addition to marginalizing them, has “stigmatized” the members of the gangs, which has made them “reaffirm” their status as “gang members”: “If the people and the TV say so Well, yes, I am.”
DELEGITIMATE VIOLENCE, WHATEVER THE ORIGIN
The experts consulted by Efe agree in calling for a state plan to prevent youth violence, the absence of which has given wings to young people in situations of social vulnerability to become radicalized within gangs and other groups.
The president of the Movement Against Intolerance, Esteban Ibarra, one of the voices demanding that the Government promote policies against crime among minors, stresses the need to “delegitimize violence” as well as “stop normalizing and justifying such behavior “.
At the judicial level, he recalls that the declaration of the DDP and other gangs as criminal organizations by the Supreme Court means that the security forces can bring to justice any individual who is investigated and has sufficient links with said organizations, but “they cannot is being done,” denounces Ibarra.
In addition, it maintains that the minor’s law, which punishes serious crimes committed by people over 16 years of age with internment, “trivializes” the sanctions for young people in that age range who commit crimes within the gangs.
Ibarra points out that the discourse against violence must be separated from xenophobia, since it has nothing to do with the origin of “criminals.”
IN THE SPOTLIGHT OF THE POLICE
Since the beginning of the century, youth gangs have been a priority for the Police. Says the spokesman for the UFP, José María Benito, and proves it the existence of specific units that investigate these groups within the Information Brigades.
However, Benito and Pablo Pérez, spokesperson for the Jupol police union, affirm that there is an intensification of the violence exerted by the gangs -reflected in the use of weapons such as machetes-, although they do not perceive an upturn in the number of brawls or events that star.
Both support the police deployment of gang control in the face of this escalation of violence, but regret that, as with other threats, they do not have enough troops “to get to everything.”
However, they will work “at the foot of the canyon” during the coming weeks so that in Madrid – and the rest of Spain – security continues to reign.
Jose F. Sánchez
(c) EFE Agency