The mayor of Badalona, Xavier Garcia Albiol, has reacted to the arrests of minors accused of committing a group rape of a young woman last June, demanding the tightening of the Minors' Law since, he assures, "the current disciplinary measures do not work." ". At the same time, he showed his solidarity with the victim and provided the affected family with all the municipal mechanisms at his disposal.
For Albiol, Badalona does not have an exclusive rape problem, beyond what other cities may have, but recognizes that when these actions become known, great social alarm is generated in society, especially due to the impunity with which these minor criminals act. , knowing that they are not criminally liable.
"We must open another debate," says the mayor, to proceed with the reform of the Minors' Law, which he urges the political parties in the Congress of Deputies to do. Hardening of penalties is necessary. "It cannot be that a minor commits a sexual assault and that after a few days he is back on the streets" and that the only punishment for him is an administrative sanction that the families must assume.
In the opinion of the popular leader, "detention in sheltered centers" for juvenile delinquents "does not work" so it is necessary to react from different areas and work transversally from the educational, social and police areas. For this reason, he proposes that the sentences for minors who are not criminally liable be generated by a committee of experts that analyzes the measures to be taken in each case. If the administration is not involved in reforming and tightening the law, "these violations will be repeated," Albiol lamented.
The helplessness of the City Councils, in the face of the laxity of justice in this type of events that "generate great social alarm" is also another of the problems that, in Albiol's opinion, society encounters. Thus, for example, he states that "in 99% of the cases in which a city council wants to present itself as a popular accusation, it is rejected by the judges."
"We must stop making statements, demonstrations and beating ourselves in the chest" he cries to the mayor and "take action to change what is not working" which in this case is the procedure that the Generalitat applies in cases of violations by minors who cannot be charged with criminal offenses. "I'm not saying that they go to prison with the elderly, but that the penalties be toughened," says Albiol. "It is not reasonable that a rape should go without consequences because it is committed by a minor," he noted in his public appearance.
