Children and young people lured by criminal “firms”. Juvenile and group delinquency continues to rise

It is our responsibility to prevent our young people from being captured by gangs” – these words from the former Secretary of State for Internal Affairs, Isabel Oneto, served as both inspiration and driving force for the unprecedented work carried out by the Integrated Analysis Commission of Juvenile Delinquency and Violent Crime (CAIDJCV), which Oneto coordinated, created in reaction to the escalation of crime involving youth gangs, a phenomenon that has caused particular public alarm since 2021. Instead of the simplistic security response, the Government chose to bring together all entities and experts, and even hear what young people had to say about a system that cannot prevent them from being “captured by gangs”.

According to the final report to which the DN had access, and which was published this Wednesday on the website of the Ministry of Internal Administration, “sectoral hearings were carried out covering 100 different entities and 163 professionals/specialists and young people, carrying out 12 interviews with young people undergoing hospitalization in an educational center, and their families, eight plenary hearings involving 17 experts, and also bibliographic and statistical analyzes of data from various sources”.

The new Government will have a work base that no other has had to face this phenomenon. The problems were exhaustively identified in all areas of intervention, based on testimonies from all the professionals who know and accompany these young people and who, on behalf of the State, must and want to take care of putting them on a crime-free path. And there is no time to waste.

The statistics, still provisional (the definitive numbers will only be available in the Annual Homeland Security Reportwhose publication has not yet been announced), indicate that in 2023, 18,406 incidents of Juvenile Delinquency were recorded by the Security Forces – crimes committed by young people aged between 12 and 16 – which corresponds to an increase of 8.2 % compared to 2022.

Group Crime – crimes committed by three or more suspects, regardless of age – followed this growth trend: 6,757 occurrences, a figure that corresponds to an increase of 14.8% compared to the previous year.