Every day, in the city of Barcelona, the Mossos d'Esquadra and the Urban Guard arrest an average of one hundred people, with some peaks of up to 130 arrested in one day. A frantic police activity that has highlighted, once again, the need to look for an alternative to the custody area for detainees in Les Corts, the dungeons in the basement of the police station.
At the time, Major Josep Lluís Trapero left in writing the need to change the concept of the custody area and to think about a new building, also centralized, but which would completely change the conditions of custody of these detainees, which would not has changed in the last century. His ambitious project was put on hold after being terminated.
In recent months, it has been the commissioner responsible for Barcelona, Marta Fernández, who has tried to find a solution to a real problem. Because it is no longer just about the overcrowding of the departments, it is that the current mobile fleet of the police, with the transfer vans almost always broken down, forces every morning to set up a caravan of patrol cars to transfer detainees to the City of Justice, in Hospitalet.
Some mornings, the different police stations in the city have dispensed with up to sixteen patrol cars that have stopped doing public security to transport detainees, as sources familiar with the problem have confirmed to La Vanguardia. Not to mention the transfers that many of these detainees request every day to go to the doctor.
In view of the lack of that space and the impossibility of reaching an agreement with those in charge of the City of Justice to precisely use its dungeons, Commissioner Fernández and her team have worked on a plan to decentralize les Corts, which has the approval of the management.
The dungeons of the Horta-Guinardó police station have been operating since the beginning of June. With capacity for between 20 and 25 detainees, it is already receiving arrestees who help to decongest the Courts.
At the same time, two weeks ago they started the works to condition the cells of the Ciutat Vella police station. Considering that the police in this district, both cops and urban guards, arrest a very high percentage of suspected criminals, the savings in patrol cars alone to transport those arrested to the Courts will be remarkable. In addition, it will also help to decongest the cells of the detention center.
The plan is much more ambitious, foresees total decentralization and also has the involvement of the Barcelona Urban Guard to participate in the custody of detainees.
It is about each police station taking care of its arrestees from the district in its cells and that the policemen of each police station are also in charge of drawing up the attestations.
Right now, the Mossos d'Esquadra have a unit that is in charge of these attestations, a unit to which urban guards have been incorporated, and which, for the moment, is not planned to be decentralized, although progress would be that each police station has police officers with the ability to fill out these documents that accompany the detainee before the judge.
It is not an easy task because, as indicated by several consulted sources, the drafting of these certificates requires specific knowledge that is eventually acquired through daily practice.
It is true that the custody area complies with the legal requirements and also has the ISO certification that corresponds to its procedures. But the working conditions are tough, the police have always reported. Not to mention the situation of the cells, scarce, with no natural light and poor ventilation, which is complicated when on days like those of recent months the number of detainees exceeds a hundred.
