“The Basque Country is a relatively quiet place, but there are more and more robberies”, explains Joseba Goikoetxea of Securitas Direct, the increase in demand for private security systems. Goikoetxea is the manager of the Swedish multinational in the Southern Basque Country and from 2006 to 2007 his company registered a significant growth in the Basque territories: 30% in the UAE and 39% in Navarre.

This increase in demand, however, contrasts with the modest impact of house robberies. According to data from the Basque Country, the number of house robberies fell by 3.5% between 2006 and 2007. However, in Navarre, this number increased, but in the words of the Foral, they do not have serious problems. “It is normal that there are no serious problems,” says César Manzanos, a sociologist at the UPV/EHU: “The South Basque Country has one of the highest GDP in Spain. And the stronger the socio-economic ties a society has, the more resources it will have to invest in social policies, supporting marginal groups, and consequently reducing daily crime.” In the Basque

Country, 4,064 cases of robbery were processed in 2007 and only 256 in Navarre. With the population of the Basque Country four times as large as that of Navarre, the difference is statistically less pronounced, although the Basque Country still has poorer data. The increase in the demand for security systems is the result of rumors that spread from mouth to mouth, often due to the image of insecurity spread by the media. A

few years ago, most of the house robberies occurred during the summer and during the holidays, because “the owners were not in the house”, in the words of the specialist of Ericoría, “but today this is not so clear because the habits of taking a vacation are changing”. Changes in the habits of society are also detected in the numbers of security companies. A few years ago the demand for security systems increased considerably in the summer and during Easter, but today, although there is also growth, it is not so obvious. Joseba Goikoetxea attributes the disappearance of the difference between different times not to the new organization of vacations, but to the need for security of the people “at all times”.

“The sense of insecurity that society has is fabricated,” says César Manzanos firmly: “This perception is deeply linked to the interests of security companies. The real insecurity that society faces – mortgage, bank credit, reaching the end of the month... – replaces violence by its hypothetical possibility of suffering, due to the distorted reality that

television sells.” Not all robberies are the same. There are, on the one hand, ordinary criminals who go anywhere to get drugs to steal whatever they find. And on the other hand, there are professionals; they usually work in groups and have well-defined tasks. The police agree: In the Basque Country there are few examples of this second type. However, police experts are always vigilant because many of the thieves who work in groups usually have military training. In the words of Mikel Santamaría, Deputy Inspector of the Provincial Council, they know how to block an alarm, they leave no trace and they are difficult to catch because they usually have members in custody. These organized gangs pre-prepare the robberies and know where and when they're going to steal it.

Not only in terms of quantity, but also the forms of theft are not as violent as in other places, according to Santamaría: “The violent robbery that José Luis Moreno suffered has not occurred here, nor does it seem that this wave of violence will arrive here in the short term. The logical thing is to hide these bands in big cities so that they can work more comfortably.”

Pre-alarm around the house

Those who install the alarm today do not install it for the protection of property, but for the protection of the household. “People realize that if someone enters their home when they are asleep, their relatives may be in danger,” explains Goikoetxea. “Before, it was enough to lock the door of the house, but today the thieves do anything to enter the house, they can get to knock down the door. We, through the pre-alarm system, place sensors around the house to capture certain images when someone approaches the house and thus know if the customer is in danger or not.” The point of psychosis is detected in

the words of Goikoetxea, perhaps due to the dark image of society that the media disseminates. “It is true that when television broadcasts news like that of José Luis Moreno, psychosis is triggered, but the problem is that things like this happen. We are creating a society with increasing crime, and that is what people are concerned about. If you live on a floor, kick the front door at midnight and you’ll see how no one comes out to help you. Neighbors know each other less and less; they help each other less and less. We are creating an increasingly cold, individualistic society in which people seek a sense of security. That’s where the alarm comes in.”

The extreme affirmations are those of Goikoetxea, a person dedicated to the security business. When asked whether the existence of a business for them by the dangerous people implies moral competition, he answers that they only put solutions to a real problem. César Manzanos, however, strongly criticizes the position of the security companies: “The security industry strikes and fumes to convey the feeling of insecurity to the population. Electronic security systems, armoured doors, alarms... They are the tools that you need to build your own safe bubble! And in order to sell all this, there must be an atmosphere of fear and a clear enemy: the thief who practices violence. This fabricated sense of insecurity does not correspond to reality, nor to police data. It is this dangerous world that broadcasts television; after all, the fact that we can suffer violence ourselves and respond aggressively to it sells a lot on television. Who has the ability to buy TV minutes? It’s a powerful security industry.”