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Construction of the problem of Latin gangs in Spain and response of the law enforcement system

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Abstract

Recently, since their official recognition as criminal organizations by Spanish law enforcement authorities, stricter prosecution of Latin street gangs has been observed. The toughening of legal regulations, new models of police conduct and the increasingly active role of prosecutors have contributed to greater punitive pressure on the gangs. This article has two main objectives: first, to describe changes in Spanish criminal policies for the treatment of Latin American street gangs; second, to analyse to what extent these changes are in consonance with empirical findings on criminal involvement and the organizational nature of these groups. The results show that despite the recent increase in criminal activity these groups cannot be viewed as the only parties to blame for local street crime. The opinion of the law enforcement authorities that Latin American street gangs are a form of organized crime is far from reality. These groups do not have the required combination of characteristics inherent to criminal organizations, and their purposes are not always exclusively criminal.

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Notes

  1. Greater attention in this regard has been observed following the murder of Ronny Tapias in Barcelona in October 2003. This young 17 years old Colombian boy was confused by the members of the street gang, Ñetas, with a member from the rival gang, Latin Kings, leading to him being fatally attacked. After this episode, the media carried out extensive broadcasting of the case and began to report the existence of a massive flow of various Latin American gangs into Spanish territory. All this contributed to the police putting more resources into the pursuit of street gangs and their illegal activities.

  2. Spanish Supreme Court sentence, 16.04.2014 (RJ 2014/2888); MP: F. Monterde Ferrer.

  3. The data shown in the tables and figures of this study correspond to the National Police Corps, the Police Force of Catalonia (Mossos d’Esquadra), the Chartered Police of Navarre (Policía Foral), the Civil Guard and the Municipal Police. Therefore, the data presented in the tables and figures cover the entire Spanish territory with the exception of the autonomous community of the Basque Country, whose police force data (Ertzaintza) is not included

  4. However, there is certain scepticism about using deportation as an effective measure (Queirolo Palmas 2013b:31; Queirolo Palmas 2014c: 14–15). For example, deportation of street gangs members with their specific gang culture to countries of origin practiced in the USA in the 1990s contributed not only to the emergence and radicalization of gangs in other countries (Arana 2005; De Cesare 2003; Johnson and Muhlhausen 2005; Papachristos 2005; Reisman 2006; Zilberg 2011), but also weakened the collective efficacy of the immigrant community in the USA to control crime in its districts (Brotherton and Barrios 2011; Leyro 2013).

  5. In connection with this, there can be named United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, A/RES/55/25 of 15 November 2000; Council of the European Union, Council framework decision on the fight against organized crime, 2008/841/JHA of 24 October 2008; Council of the European Union, 6204/2/97, ENFOPOL 35, Brussels, 21 April 1997

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The author would like to express his gratitude to the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier drafts.

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  1. Lecturer in Criminal Law and Criminology, Faculty of Law, University of Girona, Campus de Montilivi, c/ de la Universitat de Girona 12, 17071, Girona, Spain

    Leanid Kazyrytski

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This research was supported by the Catalan Government (2014 SGR 1435, Justícia penal i democràcia) and by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness of Spain (DER2014–59743-P, La ejecución de la pena en la era de la expansión del derecho penal).

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Kazyrytski, L. Construction of the problem of Latin gangs in Spain and response of the law enforcement system. Eur J Crim Policy Res 23, 301–317 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10610-017-9344-3

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