The Public Prosecutor's Office warns of an increase in crimes committed by minors

BarcelonaProsecutor's Office warning regarding delinquency among minors. The chief prosecutor of Catalonia, Francisco Bañeres, explained this Friday that crimes committed by minors increased last year by 4.5%. Among these, the 17% increase in robbery crimes with violence or intimidation stands out particularly.

In fact, the public prosecutor's annual report states that juvenile crime data did not show major differences last year compared to 2024. However, an upward trend in crimes against sexual freedom was confirmed, and arrests of minors also increased, mainly due to the rise in arrests for robberies with violence and intimidation, which account for 36% of arrests of minors last year.

Bañeres referred to adolescent delinquency during his speech at the opening ceremony of the judicial year, which began with a reflection on weapons following the shooting this Thursday evening in Terrassa, in which two civil guards were wounded. Based on these events, for which there are three detainees, the chief prosecutor spoke of the “spread of the quantity of weapons,” and questioned whether the criminal response to bladed weapons and firearms is “sufficiently forceful”.

A plan for the judiciary

At the same event, the president of the High Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC), Mercè Caso, explained the growth in judicial cases, which reached 1.29 million last year, 1.9% more than the previous year. Caso remarked that the problem is not this increase from the last year, but the accumulated growth since 2021, when she recalled that there were already "collapsed" jurisdictions, such as civil and social. In this time, cases have grown by 28.3%, while the number of courts has only grown by 3%.

“We have a huge volume of cases and we are not enough to give the response that the citizen deserves,” warned Caso. The president of the TSJC also denounced that Catalonia “loses talent” in every competition that is published for judges to change their destination, and she announced that she is working on a strategic plan to promote the judicial career in Catalonia.

During her speech, Caso also asked parliamentarians to give judges “solid tools with the capacity to respond to very diverse situations, with a broad and fair outlook,” at the same time that the Congress of Deputies in Madrid is debating housing decrees.