New police unit to track sex offenders at risk of reoffending

The Catalan Mossos d'Esquadra police force will soon have a new unit to track sex offenders that are deemed to be at risk of reoffending.

This is what was announced on Thursday as part of the police force's new strategy to combat sexual violence by targeting offenders.

Mossos intend to gather intelligence in order to identify offender profiles and draw up a common action plan, spokesperson Montserrat Escudé explained in a press conference in Barcelona.

According to her, around 1,000 sex offenders that are at risk of reoffending live in Catalonia.

Specifically, there are 18 people deemed to be at a very high risk of reoffending, 38 sex offenders who were sentenced in other countries, and 937 people who have either been sentenced or are under investigation and who are subject to judicial measures such as restraining orders, as well as 5 people who have had European warrants issued for their arrest. 

Compiling more intelligence on these individuals, police say, will allow them to identify common physical, psychological, motivational, and methodological preferences. 

"It is a government priority to exert more pressure on sex offenders," Catalan interior minister Joan Ignasi Elena, who was also present at the press conference, said. 

16% more police reports filed 

Reports filed for sexual crimes have gone up by 16% in the first six months of 2023 compared to the same period a year prior, with a total of 2,063 complaints. 

Of these, 81% have been solved. 62% of these incidents took place between 7 am and 11 pm, and over half of them occurred over the weekend.

Around half of all of them took place in a household and in 2 out of every 3 cases, the victim knew the assailant.  

Almost 90% of victims were women, while 935 were minors.

A total of 1,689 assailants were either reported or arrested, of which 132 were minors and 70 were under the age of criminal responsibility.