The reintegration of Urdangarin and the boys from my neighborhood

I've been to prison several times, always as a guest writer at the adult education centers they usually run. The visit that affected me most was to the youth detention center, which used to be in Trinitat. It was an old, dilapidated facility with thick metal doors. Just being inside already caused me a certain anxiety, and I find the work of the professionals who go there every day admirable. When the buildings are new, like Lledoners or Puig de les Basses, the space is more sterile and the architecture less prison-like, but the knot in your stomach is still there. Especially as you walk in and the doors close behind you, and you put yourself in the shoes of those who never get out. I say the youth detention center affected me the most because it was full of kids who seemed very familiar. In fact, I found some from my neighborhood, who gave me greetings for my brothers, and some didn't want to attend the event because they were embarrassed to be recognized. Among those children were likely career criminals, real movie villains, but I got the impression that many were there because of bad choices, getting involved in illegal activities without really considering the long-term consequences of their actions. The boys from my street who ended up in prison—I knew them—were products of poverty, of parental neglect (boys were street kids and girls were homebound, so the boys were the ones who suffered from sexism), and, in many cases, of drug addiction. I remember Musta, for example, affable and friendly, whose name I came across one day in a short note fromHe 9 NewHe had died of an overdose.

I thought about these young people after seeing the clips used to announce the interviews with Iñaki Urdangarin, first Jordi Basté's and then Jordi Évole's. What a brutal contrast between the two. What a huge difference in the possibility of reintegrating into society. From a journalistic point of view, I understand that the son-in-law expelled from a royal family, who has fallen from grace and now rises from the ashes transformed into coachIt's irresistible material, a Shakespearean-tinged story that captivates viewers and generates a morbid curiosity. It's not the first case. In fact, it's a whole genre: interviews with convicted criminals and their public redemption. The problem is that time in prison seems to pay off in terms of visibility. Even more so when the interviewee presents themselves as a victim and doesn't seem to take responsibility for their actions. When Urdangarin explains the pressure he felt from the royal family (apparently the emeritus king reproached him for not living in a larger apartment), he ends up justifying his crimes. Was he a scapegoat to save the institution? Perhaps, but he was the one who took advantage of his privileged position to enrich himself illegally. In any case, our ability to understand and listen to those who have been tried varies depending on our own prejudices. To begin with, a tall, handsome, blond man, the perfect son-in-law, will be harder to catch than a young man who is asked for his ID every time he goes out and fits the "usual suspect" stereotype. The former handball player has served his sentence in infinitely better conditions than many of the young men for whom the stigma of being ex-convicts will be compounded by being North African, poor, and uneducated. Nor will they have the chance to write a book like coach nor of being interviewed in prime timeHowever, Urdangarin and the young men may have something in common: they committed crimes out of ambition. The son-in-law, because he aspired to be richer, to reach the level of the emeritus king; the others aspired to escape poverty.