Jaime and Diegoaged 15 and 25, are the latest victims of a “third generation“of youth gangs in Spain that has intensified its violence in recent months. It is the result of having looked the other way when these young people, mostly minors, required education and accompaniment, according to the diagnosis of experts consulted by Efe.
After the three brawls between the Dominican Don’t Play (DDP) and the Trinitarios 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 control 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 the “Hispano” operation was launched, which in just over three months has resulted in 118 detainees and dozens of weapons seized from these groups.
The Civil Guard has also deployed in nine municipalities of the Community of Madrid to 834 agents that will monitor the hot spots where they have detected a greater presence of these bands.
However, the agents themselves, such as the inspector and spokesman for the Federal Police Union (UFP), Jose Maria Benito They lament that previously “something must have gone wrong” when the security forces have to prioritize a threat such as that constituted by these youth gangs, which had 80 active groups in the national territory at the end of 2021, according to data from the Ministry of the Interior.
Third generation
They are under 13, 14 or 15 years old, like Jaime, the boy linked to the Trinitarios who was stabbed to death with a machete by suspected members of the DDP in the atocha streetalthough the Police have not yet been able to identify them.
And they are more violent because they want to demonstrate loyalty to their superiors. The expert in urban groups John Knight 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, the year in which the Supreme Court declared the criminal and illicit nature of the 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 Gonzalez-.
It is within the bands where they have found the “sense of belonging” which they lacked. “They feel like it’s their second family,” he says.
In fact, such commitment to brotherhood is what leads them to show no scruples when it comes to committing a crime when so requested by his superiors, reaching the extreme of going to kill in cold blood.
Likewise, Joan Caballero points out that society, in addition to marginalizing them, has “stigmatized” to the members of the gangs, which has made them “reaffirm” their status as “gang members”: “If the people and the TV say so, then yes, I am.”
delegitimize violence
The experts consulted by Efe coincide in demanding a state prevention plan against youth violence, the absence of which has given wings to young people in situations of social vulnerability to radicalize themselves within gangs and other groups.
The president of the Movement against Intolerance, Stephen Ibarraone of the voices that demands 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, it 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 “it’s not 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 penalties 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 the “criminals“.
At the Police Target
Since the beginning of the century, youth gangs have been a priority for the Police. Says the UFP spokesman, Jose Maria Benito and the existence of specific units that investigate these groups within the Information Brigades proves it.
However, Benito and Pablo Pérez, spokesperson for the Jupol police union, affirm that there is an intensification of the violence exerted by 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 they lead.
Both support the police deployment of gang control in the face of this escalation of violence, but regret that, as in the face of other threats, they don’t have enough troops “to get to everything”.
However, they will work “at the foot of the canyon” over the next few weeks so that in Madrid -and the rest of Spain- security continues to reign.