this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2025
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To people not versed in Spanish law enforcement that might seem like an unhinged rant, but it's not far off.
To clarify, local (i.e., municipal) police does exist (generally in towns and cities with more than 5,000 citizens), and is usually called guardia urbana, policía local, or policía municipal. These are who you'd call for a noise complaint.
There's also, as I said, the policía nacional and the guardia civil, both operating in the whole country.
And some autonomías (states, if Spain was federal...ish, which it sort of kind of is somewhat supposed to be, in theory, but effectively isn't, in practice) also have their own police force (which doesn't mean the others won't also operate there, of course).
It's a complicated country, mostly because it's really several, held together with duct tape and, occasionally, barbed wire.
Yes to all that. After spending time around Mossos and Guardia Civil, the former have been more pleasant for me personally.
Is there large public demand to disband them?
Only when they've done something naughty (like beating up elderly people trying to vote) and even then it soon fades, but they're unpopular enough in left leaning areas that in Catalunya there's an entire other militarized police force to do their job instead.