On the day the electoral campaign began, a close collaborator of the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, told La Vanguardia that “security is not an electoral issue for now”. “Proof of this is that it will not even be discussed in the debate between Pedro Sánchez and Alberto Núñez Feijóo. If there is any allusion, it will be tangential”, he predicted. And so it was. During the face-to-face between the socialist leader and the popular one, the only allusion to a security problem in the country was made by Feijóo to assure that since Sánchez has been president “the occupation of housing has increased”. A decontextualized figure, since the crime statistics system records that housing occupations began to increase in 2016, when Rajoy was president.
During the last legislature, the opposition and the majority police unions – who feel very much supported by the right and the extreme right – have tried to place in the political debate the alleged problem of insecurity that plagues the country due to the rise in crime. However, the numbers belie these claims.
The number of criminal offenses registered in 2002 totaled 2,325,254 crimes, of which 83.9% corresponded to the category of conventional crime, which constitutes a reduction of 1.6% compared to 2019, the year taken as a statistical reference, since it is not affected by restrictions due to the pandemic.
More data Last year, Spain placed its crime rate at 48.8 recorded criminal acts per thousand inhabitants. In the United Kingdom this rate rises to 79.5. In Germany up to 60.7. And in Denmark or Belgium, at 53.9 and 74.8, respectively.
And the number that really has all the alarms going off in the Ministry of the Interior, despite the fact that it does not appear in political meetings, and very superficially in electoral programs; cybercrime has increased by 72% compared to 2019. The Popular Party includes in its electoral roadmap the promise to launch a security plan against cybercrime “with personal means, legislative reforms, investment in technology, specialization, training and awareness campaigns. The truth is that there is already a strategic plan to strengthen the fight against cybercrime, approved by the Interior a couple of years ago following the rise of this phenomenon.
The Socialists are committed to developing the plan by means of more specialized agents against crimes that are very complicated to prosecute – computer scams, attacks on databases, theft of intimate information or frauds on companies – and have a very low clearance rate. The Sumar and Vox programs do not allude to this problem.
What is mentioned – in all the Vox meetings – is about the phenomenon of employment. It was also, for his part, the candidate of the Popular Party who brought up this issue in the debate. The extreme right promises “zero tolerance” for illegal employment through a reform of the Penal Code and the Criminal and Civil Procedure laws. The scope of this reform is not detailed in its program.
On the one hand, they propose to approve a package of “anti-occupation” measures to allow evictions to take place within 24 hours, that illegally occupied homes are not taxed, or to prevent illegal occupations from being registered. In addition, the PP assures that new units will be created in the forces and security bodies of the State specialized in the fight against illegal occupation, and also “immediate action units” with “clear and effective protocols” which they do not develop.
To try to “not cede more ground to the right in this matter that they have taken the flag”, as recognized by socialist sources, the PSOE also enters into this problem. In their program they admit that the illegal occupation of homes “is a serious matter and must be combated, especially the action of the mafias”.
The Socialists, for their part, promise to promote a legislative reform to guarantee the eviction of illegal squatters within 48 hours. 24 hours more than the popular proposal. “For the Government of Spain it has been a priority”, says the PSOE document.
The crime statistics system shows that the number of criminal offenses related to the occupation of real estate during the first quarter of 2023 were 3,898. In the same period of 2021, this figure was 4,634. And in 2022, 4,385. That is, this year they have decreased by 11%.
