This is how Barcelona's youth gangs have changed

BarcelonaWednesday was Esquadres Day, the official launch day for the Catalan police force, and an occasion where Mossos d'Esquadra officials take stock and share future security challenges in an auditorium full of officers. The chief commissioner, Miquel Esquius, mentioned drug trafficking and extremism as the country's main challenges. But he also highlighted a third element that has been the focus of the prefecture's attention for months: youth violence.

The Catalan police are referring mainly to gangs formed by small groups of people – predominantly very young boys –, mostly of compulsory education age, who have been proliferating in Barcelona and its metropolitan area. Authorities are concerned that, in some cases, they flaunt bladed weapons, such as large machetes, and that they occasionally fight among themselves and there are attacks between groups in the street. 

Police attention to the emergence of youth gangs has been growing, to the point that the General Information Commissariat of the Mossos is currently implementing a plan to map out certain points in Catalonia where they have a presence. According to sources consulted by ARA, this strategy began with the arrival of the new prefecture a year and a half ago. In the Barcelona metropolitan area, points with a presence of youth gangs have already been detected. For example, in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat and Terrassa. 

Also from the Barcelona region, monitoring tasks are being carried out on some groups, present in areas near the Besòs river, in the districts of Sant Andreu, Nou Barris, and Sant Martí. In fact, this week the plenary session of the Barcelona City Council approved a proposal by Junts to promote a plan between the Guardia Urbana, the Mossos, and the local police forces of the metropolitan area to combat the activity of criminal youth gangs. 

Gratuitous violence vs. neighborhood control

The Mossos talk about incipient groups that must be addressed before they grow. Neighbors of Parc de la Pegaso, in Sant Andreu, explain that they now see more Mossos agents in the area, especially at night. The police had identified one of these youth groups. One of the neighbors, Gemma, explains that a year ago she had occasionally seen fights and groups of young people running after each other, in one case with an axe in hand. Now, she says, the increase in police presence has meant that images like this are not seen as much. However, she recommends that her nephews not go through certain areas at certain times. José, a bartender in a local bar, corroborates that a few months ago he saw fights between groups of young people, but that now everything is calmer.

The same happens in the Nou Barris district, where there are groups that call themselves Barrio 18. Carlos and Antonio, who are neighbors of Plaça Àngel Pestanya, also explain that they often witness chases and, less regularly, fights. However, they do not detect an increase in violence in recent years. Both talk about very young boys, some of whom carry knives, who spend their afternoons in the square, some consuming drugs. Sometimes, if a group from another area arrives, they end up fighting, they explain. The Mossos have also opted to increase patrols in this area. 

However, the Catalan police are clear: the behavior of these young people is not like what was observed in the early 2000s, when there was great media and police concern about the rise of Latin gangs like the Trinitarios or the Ñetas, which gained a strong presence and caused regular confrontations. The groups identified in Barcelona and its surroundings do not fit this profile: their members no longer emulate these gangs (they often adopt other names) nor do they have such high group loyalty. 

In most cases, these are smaller, more heterogeneous groups, made up of people of different nationalities (predominantly Spanish) and who do not engage in joint criminal activity beyond fighting among themselves, although there may be exceptions and individual behaviors. They are not groups with the role of a branch or franchise of large international Latin organizations. Nor have there been deaths or a sense of insecurity like in the early 2000s. In fact, fights among them are usually more about a simple element of gratuitous violence than about controlling a specific neighborhood or square. Everything is in an embryonic stage. That is to say, it could be a future threat.

Both police sources and thematic experts point out that Catalonia is far from the situation in Madrid, where there is a more entrenched presence of youth gangs of Latin origin, heirs to this past phenomenon. For example, this past Friday a 17-year-old boy was stabbed to death in Vallecas, and the police are already talking about a possible revenge between the Trinitarios and Ñetas gangs.

However, in Catalonia there have been police operations against the Trinitarios, but they have ended with the arrest of old members, in no case belonging to a youth gang.

Second and third generations

In Catalonia, many of the people who make up these groups are part of the second and third generation of immigrants. "They are looking for a second family to welcome them. Twenty years ago, they were people who had just arrived, who were lost, some had no family references. Today they can still have this function, although a feeling of exclusion is added to it," explains Carles Feixa, professor of anthropology at UPF and coordinator of theYouth Report in Spain 2024. He adds that large gangs have continued to exist, but as a "more symbolic reference". Now, he summarizes, we have returned to a dynamic similar to that of the 70s, "of small neighborhood gangs, without a transnational connection". 

However, Feixa says he is not aware of any "serious study" that speaks of an increase in youth violence in Catalonia. For example, the Youth in Spain 2024 Report is interesting because it asks young people if they have participated in street fights or if they have recorded them. 10% answer yes. According to the anthropologist, this answer "is not quantitatively relevant", but it is relevant that half of young people have seen fights on social media. He warns that this does not automatically translate into more violence but it is a relevant factor. 

"The idea of violence as entertainment has resurfaced," agrees, in this line, Jaume Funes, a psychologist, educator, and journalist. He insists on the idea that gangs are a "family" for people who do not have one or have a disorganized or distant one. "They are people who seek forms of affirmation in a society that has hardly accepted them," he adds, and also agrees with the idea that "social fragmentation" has also led to the "fragmentation of groups". However, he warns: "There are so many ways of being young that one cannot generalize". 

In fact, one of the main questions is how these conflicts should be addressed, and both experts agree that this cannot solely be the responsibility of the police. The key, according to Funes, is to find interlocutors within these groups and not fall into an "action-reaction" spiral.

"Mediators are needed, more social integrators, and more presence in the transition from secondary school to the world of work," adds Feixa, who insists on the importance of the school environment in this phenomenon. On the one hand, to reduce absenteeism; on the other, to avoid school segregation, "which has not been reversed" and fuels conflict.

This week it has become known that the Mossos and the Department of Education are promoting a pilot plan to have plainclothes officers in schools. Although sources from the Mossos link it to the problem with these youth gangs, the Minister of the Interior, Núria Parlon, did state that it would help prevent "youth violence".