The Telegraph’s travel experts Annie Bennett and Sally Davies discussed travel in Spain in a November 16th live webchat on the UK newspaper’s site.
A question came in from someone by the name of Jen who had seen the “Robbed in Barcelona” site and wanted to ask Sally about it.
We were pleased that Sally had encountered our site before, saying: “I know the website you mean”.
Sally confirmed that there is a problem with petty crime in Barcelona, saying: “the key is obviously to try not to look like a tourist!” (We wrote about that here.)
It’s possible we’re alarmist, but it’s kind of hard not to be when we deal with the topic daily… we get alarmed! Then again, if there are 31 reported robberies every hour, there are 31 reported robberies every hour.
The question-and-answer went as follows:
Live chat on Telegraph.co.uk
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They don’t prey on the unwary, they prey on the vulnerable. The unwary are just one subset. And the old story that petty crime in Barcelona is non-violent is just that – old. People are being threatened with knives, people are being mugged by groups of thieves, people are being murdered. That’s not alarmist, it’s realist.
http://www.robbedinbarcelona.com/2011/03/07/murder-in-local-spar-shop/
http://www.robbedinbarcelona.com/2011/10/05/local-poet-killed-for-a-bicycle/
Hi.
Don’t want to get into a whole debate here because I’m on your side: I think street crime here is awful and not enough is done about it, and I’ve talked about that in print, on the radio and to the mayor in person. The more websites like this, the better. It’s important to give some context, however. Barcelona’s murder rate is very low – half of Glasgow’s, for example, a city only a third of the size of BCN – and the majority of homicides here are in domestic or gang situations, ie nothing that’s likely to affect tourists. The fact that the two murders mentioned here caused such a stir speaks volumes.
The woman who wrote to me was feeling too ‘freaked out’ to come to Barcelona, which seems like a disproportionate response, and given the rapid-fire constraints of the Q&A I used ‘a bit alarmist’ as shorthand for all of the above. People shouldn’t stay away, they should just do their best to frustrate thieves once they get here. The unwary might be a subset of the vulnerable, but in this case it’s an almighty subset.
Thanks for contributing, Sally, it’s appreciated.
Pickpocketing is rampant in Barcelona, but it is still an incredibly safe city. Few places in the world can women move around so safely, at all hours, for example. What Sally says is true though: it is very underhanded, non-direct and non-violent. No one is ever robbed under threat of violence, or at least it is extremely rare.
Don’t look like a tourist, or at least, be aware, watch each other’s backs in a group. You stand out a lot more than you think.
Stopping it: that is more dangerous. I have only been threatened trying to intervene in a thief’s work, so be careful about being gallant.
Real reason for the hysteria: good way for politicians to take away people’s freedom, that old fear hysteria thing. But Middlesborough or Kansas City are much more dangerous places to live.