More things they do wrong in Spain

Or in Madrid anyway... private security. This is a real change here, which I assume followed upon the 2004 Al-Qaeda bombing at Atocha Station. There are private security guards everywhere: the train stations, the metro stations, every museum, and every government building. My general sense is that the Aznar government was big on privatization, and some of these contracts must have pre-dated the March 2004 attacks. It is not as though Madrid lacks cops, as the municipal, provincial, and national cops all have a high profile (not to mention the Guardia Civil), but the private security guards (amusingly called vigilantes en español) are too numerous to count.

They are also totally ineffective. While there are metal detectors and luggage x-rays all over the place, the operators are frequently all-together absent. The guards seem to spend most of their time socializing. Most of them, especially the ones in the Metro, are sort of unkempt and rough-looking (more like bouncers than uniformed guards). I am not sure what they do, but I watched four kids smoke meth on the subway right in front of 25 witnesses today, and then walk right past the guards, with their pipes still in hand. I did see four of them hassling an insane woman though. They also walk around with muzzled German Shepherds. Now at first I assumed these were bomb-sniffing dogs, but then I noticed that all of them were muzzled with metal cages. I also noticed that they were never sniffing anything. Then I ran across this notice from the Communidad on the Internet. Apparently they are there to "help" the guards with "evictions" and generally to discourage crime. Nice.

To top it all off, the Metro guards have been accused of numerous crimes, from beating immigrants to molesting women. Apparently the company defended the guys who thrashed some Argentinian by saying the guards work long, hot, stressful hours.

Note-- I was going to photograph the guards, but decided that this was not such a grand idea. So I will append the "servicios de perros" notice for illustration.