The commission looking into the Local Police situation is being closed, which is a problem for the Alicante City Council. In anticipation of the body’s final meeting, political groupings submitted their views this Thursday. They all came to the same conclusion: there is an obvious staffing shortfall.
Although the commission’s formation was decided upon during the December 2024 municipal plenary session, Mayor Luis Barcala didn’t publicly establish it until three months later. Since then, in response to multiple complaints from officers regarding inadequate working conditions and equipment, the Chief of the Local Police, José María Conesa, and several other officers have appeared before it, providing clarification on matters pertaining to the internal operations of the force and the issues faced by the staff.
The municipal organisations delivered their judgements about the state of the Alicante Local Police after the hearings concluded. Both Vox and the left agreed on a single point—the need to strengthen the force due to staff shortages. The chief commissioner, whose forced resignation is pending a court decision, voluntarily attended the commission’s inaugural meeting after presenting a nearly 500-page report to the City Council. Regarding the number of policemen available in Alicante, Conesa bemoaned the fact that “there are not enough officers because they have been retiring,” adding that “the ratio per inhabitant is not something the law requires, but rather recommendations that are given.” He did concede, though, that the city “has a lower ratio than Elche, for example.”
The PSOE suggests a roadmap for improvement.
The PSOE has now put up several recommendations, one of which is a thorough five-year plan to enhance the police force. The socialists’ goals include making sure that the required jobs are filled, creating a programme for vehicle maintenance and renewal, and disclosing important information like response times, extra hours, training offered, and the total number of vehicles in use at any given moment. According to PSOE councillor Miguel Castelló, “Barcala has managed the Local Police without planning, using stopgap measures and improvised decisions, which has led to a staff shortage, a lack of resources, and a lack of foresight that both officers and citizens are paying for today.”
Vox complains that there isn’t “motivation”
The force “suffers from a worrying and proven lack of internal organisation,” according to Vox, a frequent collaborator of the Barcala government, with a “notable” shortfall of officers and agents. The far-right party claims that this circumstance “has spread an alarming and unacceptable sense of demotivation almost universally” among the cops.
Nevertheless, Abascal’s party maintains that there is a “very significant deficit” in operational and legal training. They also see a “deep break between the force itself and the police leadership, and between the command staff and the various units.”Vox claims that all of this translates “seriously” into a reduction in security and the range of public services the force offers.
The ratio of agents is the centre of compromise.
The Valencian nationalists, for their part, argue that Alicante should have a force of about 700 officers in accordance with the security criteria established by the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces, where the ideal ratio is 1.8 officers per thousand residents. They bemoan the fact that there aren’t even 450 cops in the provincial capital.
The coalition also notes that “the budget is clearly insufficient, to the point of jeopardising the basic provision of the service.” He feels that the financing “is disproportionate to the population served, the responsibilities assumed, and the risks inherent in police work,” which means “the Police Council should also be convened, as required by law, to study the staffing needs.”
“Privatisation” is rejected by EU-Podemos.
Beyond the fact that all parties agree that new police must be hired, EU-Podemos argues that the existing policing paradigm, which is “focused on incidents,” is “insufficient.” Strengthening “a community-oriented and neighborhood-focused police force, geared towards prevention, mediation, and fostering coexistence” is what the left-wing coalition demands.” Manolo Copé, the party’s spokesperson, feels that a “real and priority reactivation” of neighbourhood policing units is necessary to accomplish this.
“This represents a disguised privatisation of public safety, incompatible with a democratic security model,” Copé laments, referring to a recent agreement between the PP and Vox parties that has pushed a contract for a private company to assume security for various municipal facilities, freeing up officers to patrol the streets.
Author: Derek Appleton
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