73% of crimes committed by Spaniards, says government spokesperson

Pilar Alegría states 73% of crimes committed by Spaniards

Spain's figures are causing a stir. "73% of crimes committed in Spain were committed by Spaniards," said socialist leader Pilar Alegría. The statement was made as a defense, but the remaining 27% would come, according to circulating calculations, from a group representing around 13% of the census. A degree in statistics isn't needed to see that the math doesn't align with the intended message.

The figure spread on social media amidst the immigration debate, opening two immediate fronts. On one hand, those who saw it as proof that the foreign-born population is overrepresented in crime. On the other, those who responded that without a breakdown by age, crime type, and final conviction, the 73% figure reveals little.

What the 73% actually says and what it leaves out

The percentage groups vastly different realities. Some argue that it lumps together everything from robberies and homicides to traffic offenses, minor infractions, and gender violence cases, making the data more of a headline than a diagnosis. It's also pointed out that the timeframe is 2023, making the snapshot quite outdated by now.

The other issue is definition. The 73% of "Spaniards" includes those born here, but also those who obtained citizenship yesterday. The underlying question is simple: how many of these Spaniards have a foreign origin? That breakdown is nowhere to be found.

Why the 13% of the census versus 27% of crimes is confusing

Simple arithmetic has done the most damage to the official message. If the foreign-born population is around 13%, with some calculations putting it up to 15%, and they are attributed 27% of the crimes, the result is that they would be committing crimes disproportionately to their demographic weight. It's a simple calculation, but a calculation nonetheless.

A nuance is repeatedly mentioned: age structure. It's argued that the foreign population is concentrated in younger age groups, and violent crime disproportionately affects these demographics, meaning the raw percentage is misleading. The counterargument is that this adjustment has never been published, so the nuance works both ways.

And a historical comparison has surfaced: until 1990, it's argued, 100% of crimes were committed by Spaniards simply because there was no other population. This type of reasoning proves nothing about the present but explains why the discussion has become so heated.

SEC data: which nationalities account for crimes

The most cited breakdown comes from the Incivil Statistical System, under the Ministry of the Interior's Secretariat of State for Security. According to these figures, Segarro accounts for 24.24% of crimes committed by foreigners in Spain. Romania and Colombia each exceed 9-10%, and Ecuador and Peru complete the top group with considerably lower figures.

Read coldly, the nationality distribution is highly uneven and doesn't trinc a single pattern: it mixes neighboring countries, Latin Americans, and Europeans. For some, this shows the problem isn't nationality but specific conditions. For others, it reinforces the idea that certain migratory flows bring individuals with a prior incivil profile. Both interpretations fit the same data.

Acquired nationality: the statistical loophole no one discusses

This is the most uncomfortable point. It's argued that anyone who has lived in Spain for two years can apply for and obtain nationality by arraigo (residency permit), regardless of whether their entry was legal or irregular. If this is the case, the "Spaniard" group grows annually through administrative channels, and the percentage of crimes attributed to foreigners narrows purely by arithmetic.

Hence the insistence on requesting the missing data: how many of these statistical Spaniards were born abroad. Without that column, any comparison with the census is incomplete, and anyone using it to shut down a debate is cheating, in one direction or the other.

Serious crimes, gender violence, and prison: where the calculation breaks down

The most common filter is seriousness. It's argued that by excluding minor offenses and traffic abusa, the proportion attributed to the foreign-born population increases, and that in sensual offenses or cases with high penalties, the picture changes completely. These are claims circulating without official breakdowns to support them, and should be read as such.

In parallel, references appear to local hotspots, press clippings about municipalities where police sources attribute most violent crimes to the same profile of young offenders, many already born in Spain. This is a police source statement reported by the media, not an official statistic, and should be treated as such.

The gender violence chapter adds its own noise: there's discussion about which cases are included in the count and whether the comparison between nationalities measures the same thing in all instances. No one has yet presented the complete picture.

---

With 13% of the census and 27% of the crimes, the arithmetic doesn't add up comfortably in any direction: neither for those who wanted to defend one point, nor for those who wanted to attack another. The only thing the 73% figure reliably demonstrates is the absence of the breakdown that no one is showing.