Castelló de la Plana is considered by 57.5% of citizens to be a safe city

Castelló de la Plana is perceived as a safe city, according to the 1st Survey on the Perception of Safety and Victimisation. Castelló 2023 carried out by the Legal and Criminological Clinic of the Universitat Jaume I, which explains that 11.3% of the people surveyed perceive the city as a totally safe place, with a rating of five out of five, and 46.2% consider it safe with a four. The percentage of insecurity (rating of one and two) is only reported by 10.3%.

Broken down by neighbourhood, the data reveal that the areas with the greatest feeling of safety are the south and centre, with 3.6 out of 5; then the east, north and west areas with 3.5 and finally the Grau with 3.4. The areas considered the most unsafe are Ribalta Park (36.9%), the San Lorenzo neighbourhood (27.2%), Guinea (20.4%), West Park (5.8%) and the San Agustín Group (3.9%).

As for the situations that generate most insecurity, the most frequently mentioned are robbery with violence (18%), sexual assaults (15.5%) and home burglaries (15%), and the least mentioned are terrorism (3.5%) and corruption (2%). And the crimes perceived as most frequent in the city are crimes against property, theft (33.5%) and robbery (38.8%), domestic abuse (11.3%), injuries (6.8%) and sexual assaults (5.8%).

The factors identified by those surveyed as the cause of the perception of insecurity in the city were the lack of police presence (16.1%), the ineffectiveness of the judicial system (15.8%), the increase in poverty (15.6%), the neglected state of some neighbourhoods (15.1%) or drug trafficking (14.8%), and the causes of crime were the lack of values instilled by the family (18.6%); the malfunctioning of the judicial system (18.1%), drug use (17.3%) or unemployment (15.3%).

With regard to the number of crimes, only a quarter of those surveyed indicated having requested the intervention of the State security forces during 2023 and 14.3% indicated having experienced a crime during the same period. However, 40.7% indicate that they do know family members or friends who have suffered a crime, mostly theft (40.4%), physical aggression (14%), robbery with force (12.3%) or cybercrime (10.5%).

Most of the victims filed a police or judicial report and six out of ten did so with the National Police. Those who did not do so claimed that ‘reporting is useless’ or that ‘the incident was unimportant’ as the main reason, but 19.2% said that they did not do so out of fear and 3.8% because of the waiting time at official facilities.

The report also includes an assessment of the security forces and bodies. The results show that the National Police is the most highly rated when it comes to protecting citizens or attending to victims of crime, while the Local Police is the most highly rated when it comes to resolving private conflicts or dealing with noise nuisance of all kinds.

The assessment of the performance of the Local Police by neighbourhoods shows that the central and southern areas (which have the highest perception of safety) are the least satisfied with the municipal security force, with a score of 3. In contrast, the eastern and northern areas have slightly higher satisfaction, with a score of 3.1. And the most satisfied neighbourhoods were the west and Grau areas, with a score of 3.2.

The questionnaire has taken into account the questions included in the study on citizen safety and victimisation by the Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas (CIS) and a previous survey carried out by the same research team in the city of Ibiza. The sample of 400 people includes a representation of neighbourhoods (27) in the seven postcodes and different age groups (from 18 onwards). The results show a higher representation of young people aged 18-29 and more women than men (the percentage is higher in terms of population).

The report has been directed by lecturers Esteban Morelle-Hungría and Jacqueline Carvalho da Silva and Anna Raiga i Vives, as coordinators; members of the Legal and Criminological Clinic of the UJI, with the participation of Gonzalo Remolí López, Pere Romero Ortolà, Eduardo Giménez Ruiz and Amanda Pérez Silvestre, students of the Degree in Criminology and Security of the Universitat Jaume I of Castelló.

The Legal and Criminological Clinic of the Faculty of Law and Economics is a learning space in which students put into practice the knowledge acquired throughout their undergraduate and postgraduate training, through the development of an experience in which they act as professional jurists and criminologists, by analysing and solving practical cases raised by real applicants, under the guidance and supervision of university professors and professionals in the legal and criminological field.

The full report can be consulted in the UJI repository.