<![CDATA[Ara Balears in English - Security]]> 10 <![CDATA[Why should children under six only watch the eclipse on television?]]>

The Department of Health recommends that children under six years of age watch the solar eclipse of August 12th on television and not directly. The Minister of Health, Manuela García, has presented the health protocol for this day with a call for "prudence" and "responsibility" to prevent irreversible eye injuries.

]]> <![CDATA[The Local Police and its language. Future challenges]]> Last month we talked about public safety in the article The grammar of security. Logically, we also included perception, social bonds, the fragility of modern societies, and the human need to feel protected. Now the challenge is to tread other paths in the language of security, mainly to talk about the role and functions of local police forces in the 21st century.What do we really expect from them? What is the scope of their authority? How do they manage transparency, ethics, or proximity? Are they prepared? Do we feel them close? And also: what human transformation – that of the police officers – does living for decades with conflict, tension, and citizen frustration imply?Since 1986, local police forces in the Spanish state are indeed police, but they are not a "full police" in all the classic dimensions of police activity. That year, the well-known Organic Law 2/1986 on security forces and bodies was enacted, a regulation that many municipal police officers perceived – from the very beginning – as an incomplete legislative architecture. The text makes it clear, legally, that local police forces are police. However, within the imaginary of the State machinery and state police forces, they remained as mere auxiliaries.They cannot carry out criminal investigations autonomously, unless under judicial dependency. Nor do they have the specific functions of the Judicial Police, nor do they have full access to certain state or European databases. They cannot carry out intelligence tasks or act with full autonomy in sensitive public security matters.Clearly stated: we are facing a partial police force, except when we talk about its own functions – security in municipal spaces, traffic regulation, ordinance application, prevention and proximity –, areas in which local police forces have developed a notable level of specialization and effectiveness.The problem is that this institutional and legislative reality has been going on for more than forty years, while the world, society, and forms of conflict have changed profoundly. In the early nineties, there was an intense struggle – under the direction of chief superintendent Joan Feliu – so that the scenario would not end up being this and so that the interpretation of the law would be different. The archives still preserve the tug-of-war between the Local Police of Palma and the rest of the State security forces. This was also recorded in the directives, appeals, and judicial rulings of those years. Finally, the model was consolidated with a very strict delimitation of powers. Whoever is in charge, is in charge.We continue. Within the Spanish constitutional framework, public security – and even citizen security itself – is not a full municipal competence. With the different normative reforms of local administrations, the little political capacity that mayors retained in this matter was progressively reduced. The main responsibility remains with the State, thus, in capital letters. Municipalities can participate in it, but always within the limits set by the norm.But, of course, citizens don't know all this and don't care much about it. Who they see every day at the bar and in the street is the mayor and the councilor on duty, and it is they who receive all the curses from heaven, while the real responsible parties receive no direct pressure. Indeed, town halls become protective shields against the Government Delegation and the State bodies. The victims are municipal officials and local police officers. In politics, not everything goes. Some parties and list leaders think so and use this difficult juncture to access power or undermine the resistance of those who govern. It doesn't matter if cheap populism or fear among citizens increases.In practice, however, public security and citizen security have ended up sharing diffuse and often ambiguous spaces. In theory, security boards should help coordinate and supplement these ambiguities, but we will leave this section for another occasion. So far we can state that we have a strained local police model, partially outdated and with evident functional imbalances.As we said before, the social and criminal landscape has changed profoundly. Today, reality is much more hybrid and complex. Cybercrime has appeared, information systems are completely different from those of 1986, and citizens demand real, visible, and immediate proximity security. But the legal framework remains limiting and restrictive. We have too many bodies with partial competencies and local police forces often underutilized.This model also has real strengths: it maintains centralized control over criminal investigation and intelligence, guarantees a certain penal homogeneity, and prevents each municipality from developing a kind of "own police force" with different criteria.However, local police forces have an effective presence in the territory. They know the people, the conflicts, and the social dynamics of towns and cities. They are often the first to intervene. Today they have quality training, operational experience, and reasonable technical resources. But we also face a possible underutilization of public resources. The citizen who asks for help or protection almost always knows nothing about this whole web of competencies. They only see a blue uniform and expect a response. And many times this response is not possible or is legally limited.Then the uncomfortable questions arise: why do local councils allocate so many economic resources to a police force that they can only partially manage? Why do citizens and political parties – especially from the opposition – constantly demand more officers and more police presence? And, above all, how have we arrived at building a local police model that increasingly leans towards citizen security, precisely in the area where it has the fewest competences, while traditional functions such as prevention, proximity, or administrative policing are weakened?Perhaps the final question is another: does the current model truly respond to the needs of the 21st century or does it continue to be, above all, a structure designed for a reality that no longer exists?

]]> <![CDATA[The grammar of security]]> Donald Winnicott (1896-1971), a British pediatrician and psychoanalyst, intuited and studied that the need for security accompanies human beings from the first moment of life. He explained the need to feel "held" by the environment in order to grow and live with confidence.Literally ‘to hold’ in English means: ‘to sustain’, ‘to contain’, ‘to protect with the hands’. But Winnicott gave it a much deeper psychological meaning. When a small child is physically and emotionally held by the mother, is fed, protected, comforted and understood, they develop a basic sense of trust in the world. This is what Winnicott called ‘holding’. They have the intimate feeling that the world will not collapse under your feet. Thanks to this ‘held environment’, the child can play, explore, grow and build themselves. Without this ‘holding’, anguish, insecurity and emotional fragility appear. On a social and global level, societies also need a kind of ‘holding collective’. I mean that we like to feel that there is order, to have reliable institutions, accepted and shared norms, a certain stability and an invisible network that sustains this coexistence. If this support fails –or we perceive that it fails– then the obsessive demand for security arises. It may sound daring, but security is not just about having police or not having crime. It is also trust, cohesion, a certain credibility, a sense of identity belonging... It is having the perception that someone upholds the collective framework. Perhaps modern societies are not only seeking more security, but to recover the feeling of ‘holding’: feeling that the world is still capable of holding them.Why have I chosen The grammar of security as the title of this article? Well, because security is also a language. There are symbols, emotions, perceptions, narratives, and even scenographies of power. We must be able to talk about security without falling into alarmist discourse, nor into the naivety of denial. How can we reconcile the need for protection and the boundaries between freedom and control? I also chose the word 'grammar' because it was very recently that I discovered the figure and legacy of Gianni Rodari, and I have been fascinated by him. In confidence, The grammar of security transmits resonances of The Grammar of Fantasy. Winnicott fits in perfectly, and applying it to a social and contemporary topic seemed audacious to me.Let's refine a bit more; in sa Pobla –in any town– when we see a dirty square, a broken streetlight, a dark street, we observe how it is transmitting an emotional message to the population. And in the face of these real events that trouble us so much on social networks, the theory of James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling fits in very well, which more or less stated that small signs of disorder can generate the perception of abandonment and insecurity even if the real level of delinquency or criminality is low. Obviously, the use of current information channels can be manipulated and redirected towards the interests of corporations, political parties, etc. It is one of the important challenges facing current societies: the abuse of manipulation and easy populism. This abuse in order to achieve "power". It seems we have reached one of the most poignant paradoxes we have today: "The more protected a society is, the less tolerant it is of uncertainty"". But, deep down, in a very internalized space, over the years of my police activity I have observed that people do not just ask for physical protection. They ask to feel that the world is still understandable, orderly, and governable. We return to my town; last April, in sa Pobla, four low-intensity criminal acts, or minor delinquency, occurred. The perpetrator was quickly identified and brought before the judicial authorities; he was a repeat offender and quite well-known. Some of the affected parties and others used social media and amplified their fear. Some political parties saw an opportunity to gain visibility, increase their presence, and use it for political purposes. This happens every so often, almost cyclically. It is certainly legitimate, but in reality – dealing with a sensitive issue – they are 'playing' with the emotions and fears of the citizens. The result was that in the following weeks there was an increase in the perception of insecurity and fear among the townspeople. Evidently, political consensus among all forces on security matters has not yet matured enough and – at the municipal level – it is practically non-existent. The defense and joint work for the citizens will still have to wait.However, let's stop and get to the facts. The municipality of sa Pobla, its town hall, has allocated an average of between 10% and 11% of its initial budget to citizen security in the last five years. This is a relatively high ratio if we compare it to the rest of the municipalities in Spain. This means that – for the governing team – it has been an important priority when designing its municipal policies. Each inhabitant of Huialfàs spends approximately one hundred and five euros annually on local security. State-level security expenses are outside these figures. This would be an objective fact, but it is very far from the perception that many people from sa Pobla have.There is a lot of work to do and –above all– a lot of work to explain, to make understood. Personally, I would like to delve into the next article on the role played by the Local Police and our privacy that we are losing, in this complex and interesting mosaic. To summarize, we can conclude that the great drama of modern societies is not only real insecurity, but the constant need to feel protected. And the inevitable question that remains is: Why does an objectively secure society continue to be so afraid?Note: This week I have ended my labor and social contract with the Local Police of sa Pobla. It has been more than forty-four years of dedication. In the beginning, I was a young man with more curiosity than training, these were different times. I have tried to give back to my town all that it has given me. The feeling of gratitude is enormous. The finite landscape and the faces of the people who have already departed have also accompanied me. I have made mistakes many times and I apologize to those I may have hurt or harmed. Life goes on and we need to savor it and share it. Until the next article, thank you.

]]> <![CDATA[Calvià premieres a police drone unit to reinforce security this summer]]>

Calvià Local Police presented this Friday the new Drone Unit, a service that will come into operation coinciding with the start of high season and which has involved an investment of 82,000 euros in technological equipment and training. The device was unveiled at the Son Bugadelles barracks and, according to the City Council, will allow for increased surveillance, citizen security, and emergency response in the municipality.

]]> <![CDATA[Residents near the former Palma prison: “We want to take our children to school without fear”]]>

Approximately 200 residents of Cas Capiscol demonstrated this Friday to say "no to crime" and demanded "security, civic responsibility, and respect," as well as "immediate solutions" for the former Palma prison and the nearly 300 people who live there. "We want to take our children to school without fear," "A safe environment also educates," "Neglect puts our children at risk," and "We want a well-cared-for neighborhood, not a forgotten one" were some of the slogans displayed by the demonstrators on orange banners. The president of the Cas Capiscol Residents' Association, Biel González, called for solutions for the neighborhood's residents and also for the inhabitants of the former prison. "It's very dangerous in terms of security and health," he said. He noted that in recent months, "low-intensity" acts of vandalism have proliferated. "The other day, someone snatched a neighbor's purse, and another person was mugged from behind," she reported. The children of CEIP Cas Capiscol were also at the demonstration and were demanding "security," because they suffer daily from the consequences of the tense coexistence that has recently developed between the neighbors and some residents of the former prison. "There have been robberies at the school gates, they see people loitering around the school with evidence of having used drugs, people showering in the fire hydrants, they smell tire smoke," said the school's principal, Ana Eva Álvarez. For this reason, the school has adopted a staff agreement to reinforce security at the entrances, has changed the entrance and exit doors, and has put up tarpaulins in the playground to prevent incidents. "And we want to continue like this, but that means extra reinforcement, and teachers shouldn't have to be police officers," she stated.

]]> <![CDATA[Partial agreement between SFM and workers on railway safety: "We are on the right track"]]>

The management of Mallorca Railway Services (SFM) and the works council will meet again next Tuesday after reaching an agreement this Friday on fifteen of the 48 requests submitted regarding railway safety, although the creation of a safety committee was not addressed. Speaking to the media after the meeting, SFM manager José Ramón Orta indicated that the negotiations are "on the right track," while the president of the works council, Ricardo Mas, celebrated the move "from doing nothing to doing something, which is always better." Mas also lamented that the safety committee for train traffic and the internalization of contracts in sensitive safety areas were still not discussed. After more than two hours of meetings, the workers' representative criticized the company for not providing a clear, structured, or formal response regarding the 48 safety measures presented.

]]> <![CDATA[13 security cameras will monitor Plaça d'Espanya and the Estacions park.]]>

The Governing Board has approved the contract for the service and supply of an integrated video surveillance system for Plaça d'Espanya and Estacions Park, with the aim of strengthening security in two of the city's busiest areas. The maximum budget for this tender is €138,718 (VAT included), and the contract execution period is two months.

]]> <![CDATA[Ibiza strengthens security at health centers during the summer due to the arrival of tourists.]]>

The Ibiza and Formentera Health Department has announced that it will double the security reinforcement at the Sant Antoni de Portmany and Vila health centers during the months of July and August.

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