Overall, rates of crime in Spain are relatively low in comparison to other European countries, with the notable exception of robberies. [1] In 2022 it was listed as number two out of 35 states in Europe with regard to the number of police-recorded robberies relative to population size, [1] although in 2020 it had a lower homicide rate than the European Union average. [2]
Instances of robbery are particularly widespread in Spain, as of 2020 Spain had the second highest recorded instances of theft in the EU. [3] One of the often cited reasons for this is a national law that states that theft of anything worth less than €400 ($459) is not a crime, but a misdemeanor. Additionally offenses for theft of anything valued less than 400 euro are not accumulated to result in more serious charges. [4]
In 2020, Spain had a homicide rate of 0.64 per 100,000 population, making it the 6th lowest among 30 European countries [2] and lower than the European Union average of 0.9. There were a total of 298 homicides in Spain in 2020. [5] [1] Many terrorist attacks have occurred in Spain, the most deadly of which was the 2004 Madrid train bombings.
Asturias, in Northern Spain, has one of the countries' lowest crime rates. With a population of 1 million people, it registered only 1 homicide during 2021. [6] Its biggest city, Gijón, with more than 250,000 inhabitants, has not registered a homicide since February 2020 (as of June 2022), before COVID-19 lockdown. [7] [8]
Spain is the principal route of entry of drugs and narcotics into the European Union. Indeed, about half of the cocaine found by law enforcement agencies in Europe is found by Spanish police. [9] Spain has a high number of drug users, leading the table of cocaine users in Europe. [9]
Cocaine usage in Spain is high by world standards. [10] Spain is a major transit point for cocaine entering Europe. [10] After arrival in Spain, much of the cocaine is then trafficked to other countries. [10] In 2005, over 50% of the cocaine found by police in Europe was found by Spanish police. [10] The so-called Galician mafia is the main trafficker of cocaine into Spain and to European countries such as the United Kingdom.
The US Department of State's Bureau of Consular Affairs advised travellers in 2011 that Spain had a "moderate rate of crime". [11] Street crimes against tourists occur in the principal tourist areas. [11] Madrid and Barcelona, in particular, report incidents of "pick-pocketing, mugging, and occasional violent attacks". [11] In Madrid, incidents have been reported in "all major tourist areas, including the area near the Prado Museum, near Atocha train station, in Retiro Park, in areas of old Madrid including near the Royal Palace, and in Plaza Mayor". [11] In Barcelona, the largest number of incidents reported also occurred in major tourist areas. [11]
In 2019, the Embassy of the United States in Spain issued a warning to its nationals against the increasing violent crime in Barcelona. The embassy highlighted crimes, which were recently committed in the most popular tourist places, such as, the theft of jewelry, money and watches. These offenses have physically harmed the victims in some cases. [12]
Spain has specific a gender-based violence law with its own courts. In 20 years they have dealt with 2 million complaints and convicted 700,000 people.
Since 2003 the Spanish government has been counting gender violence murders, by December 2022 they had reached 1,183 murders. [13]
Crime statistics for Spain are published annually by the Instituto Nacional de Estadística. [14] Different agencies of Spain and the European Union conduct analysis of the crime data in Spain. Statistics show Spain is one of the European countries with the lowest crime rate, according to a 2005 Gallup Europe research study. [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] The rate of misdemeanours and crimes in Spain was 46 per 1,000 people in 2009. [20] In 2013 Spain had one of the lowest crime rates in Europe. [21]
Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country located in Southwestern Europe, with parts of its territory in the Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea and Africa. It is the largest country in Southern Europe and the fourth-most populous European Union member state. Spanning across the majority of the Iberian Peninsula, its territory also includes the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean, the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean Sea, and the autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla in Africa. Peninsular Spain is bordered to the north by France, Andorra, and the Bay of Biscay; to the east and south by the Mediterranean Sea and Gibraltar; and to the west by Portugal and the Atlantic Ocean. Spain's capital and largest city is Madrid; other major urban areas include Barcelona, Valencia, Zaragoza, Seville, Málaga, Murcia, Palma de Mallorca, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, and Bilbao.
The economy of Spain is a highly developed social market economy. It’s the world's 15th largest by nominal GDP and the sixth-largest in Europe. Spain is a member of the European Union and the eurozone, as well as the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development and the World Trade Organization. In 2021, Spain was the twentieth-largest exporter in the world and the sixteenth-largest importer. Spain is listed 27th in the United Nations Human Development Index and 37th in GDP per capita by the World Bank. Some of the main areas of economic activity are the automotive industry, medical technology, chemicals, shipbuilding, tourism and the textile industry.
Tourism in Spain is a major contributor to national economic life, contributing to about 11.8% of Spain's GDP. Ever since the 1960s and 1970s, the country has been a popular destination for summer holidays, especially with large numbers of tourists from the United Kingdom, Ireland, Turkey, France, Germany, Italy, the Benelux, and the United States, among others. Accordingly, Spain's foreign tourist industry has grown into the second-biggest in the world.
Crime in Canada is generally considered low overall. Under the Canadian constitution, the power to establish criminal law and rules of investigation is vested in the federal Parliament. The provinces share responsibility for law enforcement, and while the power to prosecute criminal offences is assigned to the federal government, responsibility for prosecutions is delegated to the provinces for most types of criminal offences. Laws and sentencing guidelines are uniform throughout the country, but provinces vary in their level of enforcement.
Crime in Western Australia is tackled by the Western Australia Police and the Western Australian legal system.
Crime in St. Louis includes an overview of crime both in the city of St. Louis and in the Greater St. Louis metropolitan area. Crime in the city increased from the 1960s through the early 1990s as measured by the index crime rate, followed by a decline in crime rates through 2014. Despite decreasing crime, rates of violent crime and property crime in both the city and the metropolitan area remain higher than the national metropolitan area average. In addition, the city of St. Louis consistently has been ranked among the most dangerous cities in the United States. As of April 2017, St. Louis has the highest murder rate in America. At the end of 2017, St. Louis metropolitan had 205 murders, 159 of which were within the city limits. In 2018, the new Chief of Police, John Hayden said two-thirds (67%) of all the murders and one-half of all the assaults are concentrated in a triangular area in the north part of the city.
Crime has been recorded in the United States since its founding and has fluctuated significantly over time, with a sharp rise after 1900 and reaching a broad bulging peak between the 1970s and early 1990s. After 1992, crime rates have generally trended downwards each year, with the exceptions of a slight increase in property crimes in 2001 and increases in violent crimes in 2005-2006, 2014-2016 and 2020-2021. While official federal crime data beginning in 2021 has a wide margin of error due to the incomplete adoption of the National Incident-Based Reporting System by government agencies, federal data for 2020-2021 and limited data from select U.S. cities collected by the nonpartisan Council on Criminal Justice showed significantly elevated rates of homicide and motor vehicle theft in 2020-2022. Although overall crime rates have fallen far below the peak of crime seen in the United States during the late 1980s and early 1990s, the homicide rate in the U.S. has remained high, relative to other "high income"/developed nations, with eight major U.S. cities ranked among the 50 cities with the highest homicide rate in the world in 2022. The aggregate cost of crime in the United States is significant, with an estimated value of $4.9 trillion reported in 2021. Data from the first half of 2023, from government and private sector sources show that the murder rate has dropped, as much as 12% in as many as 90 cities across the United States. The drop in homicide rates is not uniform across the country however, with some cities such as Memphis, TN, showing an uptick in murder rates.
Immigration to Spain increased significantly in the beginning of the 21st century. In 1998, immigrants accounted for 1.6% of the population, and by 2009, that number had jumped to above 12% — one of the highest in Europe at the time. Until 2014, the numbers were decreasing due to the economic crisis, but since then, immigration to Spain has increased again since 2015, especially after 2021.
Crime rates in Portugal are generally low, and most crimes are non-violent. Portugal's security and peace indicators compare favourably to those of other countries; According to the Institute for Economics and Peace's 2022 Global Peace Index report, Portugal ranks as the 6th most peaceful country in the world.
Italian crime rates, though moderately low, are most definitely present, in various forms, throughout the European nation. Ranging from murder, sexual violence, corruption, assault, trafficking, and several more. But Italy is most notoriously known for its organized crime groups, present world wide, known as the Italian Mafia.
Crime in Paraguay has increased in recent years with criminals often targeting those thought to be wealthy. Although most crime in Paraguay is nonviolent, there has been an increase in the use of weapons and there have been incidents where extreme violence has been used.
Figures on crime in London are based primarily on two sets of statistics: the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) and police recorded crime data. Greater London is generally served by three police forces; the Metropolitan Police which is responsible for policing the vast majority of the capital, the City of London Police which is responsible for The Square Mile of the City of London and the British Transport Police, which polices the national rail network and the London Underground. A fourth police force in London, the Ministry of Defence Police, do not generally become involved with policing the general public. London also has a number of small constabularies for policing parks. Within the Home Office crime statistic publications, Greater London is referred to as the London Region.
In 2019, 43,686 crimes were reported in the U.S. state of Michigan. Crime statistics vary widely by location. For example, Dearborn has a murder rate of only 2.1 per 100,000 while sharing borders with Detroit and Inkster, some of the highest rates in the state.
Julián Casanova Ruiz is a Spanish historian. He teaches contemporary history at University of Zaragoza, and has been a visiting professor in US, UK and Latin America universities as well as a recurring visiting professor at Hungary's Central European University. He is currently a Distinguished Research Fellow at the Weiser Center for Europe and Eurasia, University of Michigan. He's a columnist for El País and frequent talk show guest at radio station Onda Cero.
Colombia has a high crime rate due to being a center for the cultivation and trafficking of cocaine. The Colombian conflict began in the mid-1960s and is a low-intensity asymmetric war between Colombian governments, paramilitary groups, crime syndicates, and left-wing guerrillas such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), and the National Liberation Army (ELN), fighting each other to increase their influence in Colombian territory. Two of the most important international actors that have contributed to the Colombian conflict are multinational companies and the United States.
Crime in Venezuela is widespread, with violent crimes such as murder and kidnapping increasing for several years. In 2014, the United Nations attributed crime to the poor political and economic environment in the country—which, at the time, had the second highest murder rate in the world. Rates of crime rapidly began to increase during the presidency of Hugo Chávez due to the institutional instability of his Bolivarian government, underfunding of police resources, and severe inequality. Chávez's government sought a cultural hegemony by promoting class conflict and social fragmentation, which in turn encouraged "criminal gangs to kill, kidnap, rob and extort". Upon Chávez's death in 2013, Venezuela was ranked the most insecure nation in the world by Gallup.
Dominicans in Spain from the Dominican Republic make up about 1.66% of all foreigners in Spain, this includes immigrants and people of Dominican descent born in Spain. The first country of destination for Dominicans in Europe is Spain, and it is the country with the most Dominican migrants outside of the United States.
Más País, or More Country, is a political party in Spain. It was an electoral platform formed by Íñigo Errejón around Más Madrid in order to contest the November 2019 general election.
Squatting in Spain refers to the occupation of unused or derelict buildings or land without the permission of the owner. In Francoist Spain migrant workers lived in slums on the periphery of cities. During the Spanish transition to democracy, residential squatting occurred in Spanish cities such as Barcelona, Bilbao, Madrid, Valencia and Zaragoza. From the 1980s onwards a new generation of squatters set up self-managed social centres which hosted events and campaigns. The 1995 Criminal Code among other things criminalised squatting, but failed to stop it. Social centres exist across the country and in Barcelona and Madrid in particular. In the Basque Country they are known as gaztetxes.
Crime in Latvia is usually low, especially compared to previous years, when it was named the "crime capital of Europe" by Forbes in 2008. The homicide rate in Latvia was 3.9 cases per 100,000 people in 2019, a sharp drop from 10 cases per 100,000 people in 2000, and has been steadily decreasing, but has seen recent increases. The United States Department of State has assessed Latvia's security rating as "medium", with a moderate crime rate. In recent times, crime has been increasing, particularly due to many Latvians stranded because of the COVID-19 pandemic returning to Latvia and choosing to commit crime. According to Interpol, Latvia is considered an attractive place for regional and organized criminals involved in drug trafficking, arms trafficking, human trafficking, or smuggling. According to the Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia, a third of all women in Latvia have suffered some form of sexual violence or rape while men are subjected to violence outside the family.