Rooms are being rented out in Palma's old prison and the City Council is doing nothing about it.

PalmUpon hearing the word 'mafias', Joana (a fictitious name), a woman who lives in the old prison of Palma For almost four years now, her face has been a mess. She gets nervous and says she knows nothing. "Here, to live well, you have to be like a monkey: see, hear, and keep quiet." She repeats it over and over: "My health isn't good, I never leave my house; I don't see anything and I don't know anything." She's afraid. In fact, she agrees to tell her story in a bar, far from the prison, so that no one will know—or sense—that she's talking about this with anyone.

The former Palma prison, closed in 1999 and now a settlement housing nearly 300 people, has become one of the most visible examples of the housing crisis in the Balearic Islands. Since her arrival, the number of residents has skyrocketed. In a context where some people are living in tents on highway sidewalks because they can't afford rent, some residents of the former prison—a building owned by the Palma City Council—have seen a business opportunity amidst the squalor and misery: they rent out cells for 350 euros a month. Without electricity or water.

They do it in the back of the old prison, where the gate is always open. When Joana arrived, there was hardly anyone in this area. Almost the entire building was empty, and the newcomers could choose the place that would eventually become their home. However, some were already taking advantage of the growing notoriety of the old prison and making a business out of it. She had already paid 70 euros "to a young man" to get the key to her new home.

As soon as you enter the old prison, you can tell who arrived last. The first ones stay in the buildings where the officers lived and in the larger spaces, like the kitchen, while the others stay in smaller places, like the first floors of the control towers and in the facilities, which were formerly cells, located at the back.

The prison is now divided into zones, like a penitentiary, based on the dangerousness of its inmates. In the veterans' section, they interact with the residents and help each other out. "My downstairs neighbors are lovely. We don't have any problems, and they always help me carry the water jugs I order from the supermarket upstairs. However, those who live in the blocks back there are the most troublesome. They stab each other and set fire to the first person they find," explains Joana. She never goes to that area.

As you enter through the back gate, there are people on top of the guard towers who warn you that you can't go through. They move their fingers from side to side in a gesture of denial. That's how they sow fear. The volunteers from an association that used to deliver food to the residents have stopped doing so. "Most of us are women, and some of us are afraid. It's dangerous to go in there if they don't know you. And, besides, women alone," they argue.

How are the neighbors coping?

The neighbors are also aware of the business operating within the prison. "We walk down the street and people ask us if we know where rooms are being rented," confirms Biel González, president of the Cas Capiscol-Son Busquets Neighborhood Association. In his opinion, it's run by "a mafia." He points out that this isn't the only one; there's also a drug ring. "It's not like in Son Banya, where they sell it directly there, but rather someone goes in and out and brings it in," he says.

The problem has also reached the neighborhood school. In the last demonstration, hundreds of residents demanded "security, civic responsibility, and respect" and "immediate solutions" for the former Palma prison and for the nearly 300 people who live there. The principal of CEIP Cas Capiscol, Ana Eva Álvarez, explained to ARA Baleares that the school has increased security. She detailed that the faculty agreed to increase access control, change the entrance and exit doors, and install tarpaulins in the playground to prevent incidents. The headmistress justified these decisions with several recent incidents: "There have been robberies at the school gates, people are seen loitering around the center with evidence of drug use, people are showering in the fire hydrants, they smell tire smoke, among other things," she says.

Residents say that petty crime in the neighborhood has increased since the old prison's population swelled and gangs moved in. The gang that rents out tiny cells, some as small as two square meters, preys on the desperation of people seeking shelter, while the drug gangs benefit from the addiction of some residents, who are willing to do anything to get their fix. "Something happens every day. Just recently, a woman's purse was snatched, and a young man was mugged from behind," says Biel González. Although residents point to the old prison as the cause of the conflict, they make a clear distinction between those who live there because they can't afford other housing and those who create problems in the neighborhood. "Before, the prison was occupied, and now there are stabbings and other crimes," said Cecilia Serra, president of the Cas Capiscol Parents' Association, at the last protest.

For its part, the National Police maintain that crime in the area "has not significantly increased in recent years," and points out that lately the problem "is much more visible due to neighborhood protests, but there are no more formal complaints." Furthermore, police sources assert that they have no evidence of an organized group renting rooms in the public building and describe it as "an isolated incident that could occur."

In a meeting with the City Council, the Palma Local Police, the National Police, and the Mallorcan Institute of Social Affairs (IMAS), the residents made it clear that the building is municipally owned, and therefore it is the City Council, controlled by the PP (People's Party), that must determine a solution. "But they completely ignored us," laments González. However, he explains that they reached "a small agreement" with the City Council whereby the back door will be closed and a police van will be stationed in front to monitor entrances and exits. But the National Police maintain that they have no order from the City Council to do so. Should the mayor of Palma, Jaime Martínez, fail to honor the agreement, González warns: "We will continue the fight and we will continue to monitor the situation."

It seems that, for now, the Palma City Council will not offer any solutions to the residents of the former prison. However, it has sent security forces on numerous occasions to count the people living there or to deliver a notice of voluntary eviction and, months later, a notice of non-compliance with this municipal regulation, as happened on April 12, 2025.

The political positioning

The former Palma prison has become part of the PP's (People's Party) argument against irregular immigration. At the last plenary session of the Consell de Mallorca (Island Council of Mallorca), the president of IMAS – the island's main public social services agency – Guillem Sánchez, added fuel to the fire: "The vast majority of people living in settlements or experiencing homelessness are irregular immigrants. For years, an Algerian mafia infiltrated this system. Spaniards have expelled them, and now they sublet rooms. We must analyze the fact that something is wrong when someone leaves their homeland to seek a better future and ends up in social exclusion."

The mayor of Palma recently preached the same rhetoric, stating that "60% of the people living in settlements are undocumented." Despite adopting the same political stance, Sánchez admitted to being aware of the problem of renting rooms in the old prison, while the mayor of Palma has not. Furthermore, the Palma City Council has refused to respond to ARABalears' question about whether it is aware of this alleged racket.

In response to this political stance criminalizing immigrants, the president of the Cas Capiscol-Son Busquets Neighborhood Association asserts that the residents "don't want to fall into the trap of blaming migrants for everything that happens." He thus avoids the prejudices spread by the Popular Party: "There are no good migrants or bad migrants, there are good people and bad people." Thus, they demand that public administrations not create "ghettos" and not "marginalize people for not being able to access housing" because, in their view, "where there is marginalization there are problems with drugs and organized crime, and the old prison is no exception." Furthermore, they argue that marginalization forces working people to share spaces with people who need "more careful and specific interventions" because they have other types of problems, in addition to housing.

Frustrated Projects

The former Palma prison has been a headache for successive governments for 27 years. Since its final closure, numerous initiatives have been proposed to repurpose and rehabilitate the space, but none have ever come to fruition. A center for cultural and creative innovation, a university student residence, a social housing development, and a range of facilities for citizens have been some of the options put forward over the years. What is happening at the former prison is not an isolated incident or conflict, but rather the starkest symptom of a housing crisis and institutional neglect that has been dragging on for decades. While projects stall, rhetoric hardens, and responsibilities are diluted, hundreds of people continue to survive in a space designed for confinement, not for living.