According to Balearic government figures, there were 1,786 local police officers in 2022, this number having decreased by more than 200 over a ten-year period.
In Palma alone there was a decrease of 123 to 778, the city's population having increased by almost 16,000 to 423,351. Meanwhile, the crime rate has gone up, as the chief of police, Guillem Mascaró, has pointed out.
There is a view that local authorities consider policing to be a cost and not an investment, although it does need pointing out that town hall recruitment was hampered by national government budgetary stability regulations that were introduced in 2012.
There has been some recovery, but smaller forces in Mallorca and the Balearics still suffer from having less than optimal numbers of officers. Population growth has been a fact in virtually all the 67 municipalities in the Balearics.
Sergi Torrandell is chief of the Llucmajor police force and a former Balearic government director-general of the interior. He is concerned about the large number of retirements over the coming years and says that there simply aren't enough available officers to cover the needs of the different town halls.
A lack of political will is blamed more than anything for the shortage of police. Other factors are infrequent recruitment drives and the excessive bureaucracy involved in the processing of new places.
In Palma there is political will in that the mayor, Jaime Martínez, has promised to increase the force by 300 before the next municipal election in 2027.