Introduction

The purpose of this article is to reflect on the influence of insecurity in the city of Matamoros on spaces of social interaction of a group of residents over the age of 15 years. This objective is achieved first by defining the primary groups of interviewee and some external characteristics of these groups (type of group, number of groups, intensity of shared life). Additionally, there is an attempt to identify the public and private spaces that do or do not foster this type of social interaction, whether as generators or strengtheners of primary networks in the population.² Finally, these aspects are contextualized in an environment of violence and insecurity fostered by criminal activity over recent years in the city of Matamoros, with the aim of understanding the effect of this context on the intensity of spaces of social interaction, primarily regarding the young people interviewed.

The text is organized as follows: First, there is an introduction that contextualizes and offers a general approach toward the issue; then, in the first section, the analytical framework of the paper is presented. Next, a methodological section considers the criteria for choosing the neighborhoods and interviewees for the study, as well as the type of interview and how the interview results were analyzed. Subsequently, the historical and urban background of the city of Matamoros is described, emphasizing the spatial distribution of the population and the availability of public and private spaces as existing and possible spaces of social interaction. The remaining sections discuss the results of the interviews and of the focus group.

Background and approach

Currently, the long workdays of heads of households and seasons of unemployment and underemployment limit the time for participating in family activities as well as for forming peer groups and mutual interest groups that strengthen the values of social interaction within and without the family.

There are other aspects of the social lives of working families living in large urban centers that have an impact on the strengthening of their primary networks. For example, the construction of public residential developments in outlying areas without enough urban services, such as education, work, recreation, and commercial centers, forces residents to travel long distances from their homes to different locations to satisfy their different needs. Thus, the daily time for recreation and social interaction among the family members is significantly reduced.

Together with these social factors, in recent years, the presence of the violence caused by criminal groups has been significant, and it has increased the feeling of insecurity in the daily lives of people in different social strata in Mexico. It has also caused forced displacement of the population in some regions of the country (^{Durin, 2013}). According to the diagnosis of some governmental institutions and civil society groups, there is a rupture in the social fabric³ (^{Secretaría de Seguridad Pública [SSP], 2011}; ^{Romero, 2006}).

To rebuild the social fabric, the state and federal governments have taken action and implemented programs dating back to 2003, when the Habitat program began to be developed in the most marginalized sectors of the country's urban areas with over 50,000 inhabitants. Through different social activities and urban infrastructure programs, the aim was to strengthen or foster the human and social capital of the poor population in Mexico (^{Arzaluz and Jurado, 2006}).

The intention of the Habitat projects was to improve the quality of life of the population; however, they did not explicitly aim to strengthen individuals' primary networks. When the program evaluations began to take place, it was found that the beneficiary population found advantages or personal benefits in the courses that they took or as a result of participating in work committees. However, these benefits had to do with not only increasing their human and social capital but also strengthening and creating new friendships.

The benefits were subjective, related to people's emotional state and self-esteem. People may have learned tailoring, hairdressing, and piñata-making; however, they also recovered a closeness with people-with their neighbors and with new friends and with those aspects of human interaction that do not have to do with economic or material support but rather involve the need for social interaction (^{Ordoñez and Zenteno, 2012, pp. 149-169}).

Years later, during the administration of President Calderón, in 2007, the Program to Rescue Public Spaces (Programa de Rescate de Espacios Públicos) was developed; it has been implemented in the country's main cities.

This program has already been evaluated, and we reproduce one of the recommendations of the evaluators. They note that it is necessary:

To support the realization of recreational, educational, cultural and artistic activities that are of interest to the different age and gender groups and that are associated with positive emotional states and the possibility of expressing oneself more freely, generating belonging and integration into public space (^{Vargas, Merino and Seman, 2010, p. 5}).

The specific dimensions related to play, art, conversation, and activities that identify individuals are motives or arguments that have led us to ask ourselves about how the population and its primary groups cope with contexts of insecurity in the urban centers of Tamaulipas, in this case the city of Matamoros.

Primary social groups, gathering places and insecurity

Charles Horton ^{Cooley (1909}) is the first to mention the primary group. Previously, the discussion about aspects of the primary group centered on the traits of traditional society compared to the modern one characterized by the industrial revolution. Tonnies considers traditional society as that where family plays a predominant role and relationships are intimate, private, and with face-to-face bonds, as well as lifelong commitments and a common understanding based in harmony (Tonnies, cited in ^{Dunphy, 1972}).

Cooley defines primary groups as follows:

By primary groups I mean those characterized by intimate face-to-face association and cooperation. They are primary in several senses, but chiefly in that they are fundamental in forming the social nature and ideals of the individual (^{Cooley, 1909, p. 23}).

These are some basic characteristics of primary groups: 1) face-to-face association, 2) non-specialized association, 3) relative permanence of the group, 4) a small number of people involved,⁴ 5) relative intimacy among the group participants (Cooley, cited in ^{Dunphy, 1972}), 6) a set of implicit norms that regulates the behavior of the members, 7) a high level of solidarity among the members (^{Shils, cited in Dunphy, 1972)}, 8) the group is based on and sustains the spontaneous participation of members, 9) the group involves emotional manifestations and expressions, and 10) the group allows relationships that are satisfactory in themselves, unrelated to other ends and not calculated and explicit (Schäfers, 1984).

Among primary groups, Dunphy includes 1) the family, 2) free associations of groups in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood (gangs and groups of political elites), 3) informal groups that exist in organizations (such as in classrooms, factories, military organizations, churches, and sports teams), and 4) resocialization groups (therapy, rehabilitation and/or self-analysis groups).⁵

We will now consider some of the varying characteristics used to define primary groups, such as spatial proximity or the face-to-face relationship; these characteristics are observed especially in family members who live in different distant cities and who maintain contact through means such as telephone or, currently, electronic media, such as the internet. The other characteristic is the primary transmission of norms and values because primary groups also exist among adults, once they have consolidated their personalities and are clearly established in their identities (^{Berger and Luckmann, 1998}; ^{Heller, 1977}).

Particularly notable is the counterbalancing role played by primary groups when faced with social aspects such as anonymity, isolation, alienation and role specialization (^{Schäfers, 1984}).

This quality of the primary group can provide society with citizens with a higher probability of accepting the commitments that come along with the activities specific to the secondary world, where social roles are important (connected to occupation, study, and politics, among others).⁶

The role of these citizens is why strengthening primary groups and their shared spaces of social interaction is important in public policy, while at the same time seeking to improve quality of life and the educational, work, and social levels of the population.

The number of primary groups to which an individual belongs becomes his or her personal network, which at the same time is part of the social network that serves as a support to satisfy certain needs. In terms of social networks, the individual participates in different aspects of the group (personal, family, neighbor, community, citizen). In our case, we will only emphasize the two former dimensions that are most connected to the emotional state and emotional supports of the members of these networks (^{Oddone, 2012}).

One limitation of this study is that it does not investigate the internal nature of group function; that is, we do not examine whether it functions through solidarity, cooperation, trust and respect or if it is an antisocial group that seeks distinction and separation and its own interests without respecting those of others.⁷ In this sense, we do not reflect on the degree of the social integration of the individual, although this integration is one of the functions of the primary group. We are only interested in contextualizing the urban environment, from the home to urban and public spaces.

In this text, we talk about different types of gathering places: public, private or pseudo-public spaces. Public space derives from the differentiation between private and public property. Public spaces are allocated for collective activities such as recreation, transportation, and cultural activities, among others, and free access to all should be guaranteed legally (^{Segovia and Jordán, 2005}).

The focus on the meeting space helps us consider the different possible spaces for social interaction and be open to different possibilities and interpretations. Together with this aspect of the meeting space, we also utilize other interpretations of public space. First, public space is the territory where our differences and inequalities are reflected and the site where social power manifests and expresses itself (^{Salcedo, 2002}; ^{Valera, 2008}). ^{Lofland, (1998}) notes that in cases where private or intimate bonds prevail in public spaces, the spaces become privatized places. When work or neighborhood connections prevail, then spaces are said to be local spaces. When there are more strangers or outsiders, then we speak of public space. The challenge is promoting personal and group interests-in other words, diversity-without ending up with privatization, exclusion, and division (^{Segovia and Jordán, 2005}).

Therefore, if we think about public space as part of a social relationship in which individuals can give the space their own meaning according to certain social characteristics, class or their social role (e.g., man or woman, young or old, worker or student), then we can speak of a very heterogeneous space that depends less on its territorial configuration than on the perception or its potential for building and strengthening relationships.

In contrast, the home is the private space par excellence, the refuge when public space is privatized. The tendency in current society, according to ^{Borja (2005}), is the holistic search for social functions in the home. In the present day, these functions are designed to substitute public activities with modern artifacts: Television substitutes for cinema, the yard with a garden substitutes for the public park, and the internet and Facebook substitute for communication and face-to-face interaction between relatives and friends. This trend applies to the middle- and upper-class sectors but not to the majority of the population living in marginalized sectors, who live overcrowded in small homes. Therefore, we note that there is a movement from the public to the private and consequently a vacuum and deterioration in social space (^{Remedi, 2000}). Safe activities in the context of violence and insecurity are considered to belong to private space, while dangerous activities are carried out in public and in less clearly defined spaces, such as alleys, alleyways, access elevators, and benches.

Nevertheless, there are those who maintain that public space helps socialize children and foments the creation of new friendships, among other benefits (^{Segovia and Jordán, 2005}). Some places appear to be public (cinemas, buses, religious temples, private teaching centers, shopping malls) and where people congregate or gather but, in reality, are not public. Together with those, there are commercial spaces that have received a greater boost in current society, spaces where limits are imposed by the owners (^{Salcedo, 2002}; ²⁰⁰³). These spaces are private property and therefore are not public, despite the fact that large groups of people come together in them. These are mainly malls (shopping centers) and, in our case, also private gathering places, such as restaurants.

Methodology

We consider studying the changes brought about by the insecurity and violence in Tamaulipas in a city such as Matamoros important because it is one of this state's main cities that, together with cities such as Reynosa, Ciudad Victoria and the metropolitan area of Tampico, have suffered from the presence of organized crime for some time. Additionally, the population's daily life has been affected by this context.

Because we wanted to conduct an exploratory study, we decided to employ a perspective that would encompass cases of different social strata; therefore, we chose three neighborhoods that would reflect different socioeconomic situations. We based our study on a stratification using educational, income and occupational variables, and we chose three neighborhoods to work in: one from an upper-middle-class stratum, one from a median-middle-class stratum, and one from a lower stratum. Due to the situation of insecurity, we considered it important to conduct the interviews in private, at the home of the interviewee. Additionally, the families that we visited to interview individuals older than 15 years were chosen using the snowball technique, with the aim of situating the interview in an environment of trust and security for the interviewees and the interviewers. Originally, the plan was to interview 24 people; however, this was not possible because two were not in the city and we were unable to align our schedules with a third. The interviews were conducted between October 11, 2012 and December 13, 2012. In total, there were 21 interviewees: 11 young people and 10 adults, seven males and 14 females. Of the 21, 12 were workers, seven were students, and two were homemakers. The ages of the adults interviewed ranged from 27 to 58 years, while the range for the young people was 15 to 24 years. Additionally, the recommended families had a mainly female composition. The interview was semi-structured and was composed of four sections. The first included identification questions; the second section concerned primary groups, with the interviewees asked about their friends, family relationships, and consideration and type of social interaction with their neighbors and those whom they considered their most intimate connections. In the third section, the interviewees were asked to talk about gathering places; a description of the interviewees' daily routine was included in this part of the interview, which helped us complement the information about spaces of social interaction, and we obtained details about different activities (e.g., meeting needs and going to the supermarket, school, and church). Finally, in the fourth section, the interviewees were asked about life before and after the period of insecurity. The duration of the interviews had a range of 20 minutes to one hour, with a mean duration of 37 minutes.

Families with at least three members older than 15 years were included. Thus, we have the perception of the problem from the perspective of members of a traditional family at a certain moment in their life-cycle.

The interviews were analyzed based on four major categories: primary groups, spaces of social interaction, perception of insecurity, and strategies for social interaction; each of these categories in turn has different corresponding subcategories. The interviews were transcribed, and analysis was conducted to identify the significant relationships in these categories.

A focus group was also conducted on January 4, 2013, with university students. The group was composed of six young people (four male and two female). This group gave us their perspective on the difficulties for young people in carrying out their recreational and personal activities in a context of high insecurity. The duration of the focus group was 1 hour and 26 minutes.

Spatial distribution of the population of Matamoros

Matamoros is a city with 493,000 inhabitants; it is the third most populous city in Tamaulipas. An important economic feature of the city was the installation of textile factories beginning in the 60s and 70s. The textile factories are one of the main sources of employment.⁸ These factories have promoted the immigration of workers from different states of the republic. For this reason, housing developments under the aegis of the Instituto del Fondo Nacional de la Vivienda para los Trabajadores (Infonavit) for maquiladora workers have proliferated. Currently, 40 percent of the existing residential developments in Matamoros are connected to this type of financing (^{Jurado, 2011}).

The distribution of the residential zones in Matamoros begins from a nucleus around the Bravo River and close to the international bridges and then distributes in a radial and irregular form toward the west, east and south of the city. As in the other border cities of the northwest, Matamoros has its city center (plaza, cathedral, government palace) relatively close to the border with the United States. Unlike other Mexican border cities, however, the sectors with the highest incomes are established around the center and closer to the Bravo River and the international bridges (^{Alarcón, 2000}, p. 117; ^{Castro, 2011}); they are also distributed along significant roadways and close to central spaces, while the lower-income sectors are found on the periphery of the city (^{Alarcón, 2000, p. 123}).

There is currently a more heterogeneous distribution of the different social strata in the urban space (^{Castro, 2011}). The historical center of Matamoros is not directly next to the international bridge. The area between the center and the bridge was a commercial area with nightlife and entertainment and currently has a number of abandoned and closed facilities due to the lack of tourists and nightlife clientele.

In relation to the lower-income sectors, the population that resides in these residential developments lives in overcrowded conditions, with the average square meters per home varying between 43 and 60 m² with a 6 m front. Green areas are minimal, and the average square meters per inhabitant does not surpass two, while the mean recommended by the United Nations [UN] is 9 m² (^{Jurado, 2011}).

Some considerations regarding public and private spaces in Matamoros

According to urban land use in Matamoros, there are 196 ha of green spaces representing 3.24% of land use, while abandoned lots add up to 22.84% and residential use is 18.9%. Industry, commerce and equipment encompass 29.58% of the total urban surface area (^{Ayuntamiento Municipal de Matamoros, 1995}). The above means there is a great deficit in public areas for social interaction. The Municipal Plan of Matamoros (Plan Municipal de Matamoros) (1995) calculates that the city should have at least 340 ha of green spaces.

The deficit seems greater because the vast majority of green spaces are unused; they have not been set up for the population to be able to enjoy them but rather are hills of brush and abandoned lots. Some have been transformed and used to construct schools or churches.

Additionally, looking at their distribution (Figure 1), we note that the green spaces are present in different neighborhoods of the city. This means that there is huge potential for the establishment of social interaction zones that could strengthen the primary connections of the inhabitants of Matamoros.

Source: Created by Rosalía Chávez based on the ^{Instituto Municipal de Planeación [Implan] Matamoros, (2012)}

Figure 1:  Distribution of the green spaces in Matamoros, Tamaulipas and in the neighborhoods considered for the study 

In a diagnostic of the spaces allocated for sports, health, culture and recreation in the city of Matamoros, ^{Quintero (2011)} notes that despite the sustained growth and the distribution of the population toward the periphery, the urban infrastructure allocated for these activities is concentrated in the central part of the municipality.

However, social interaction has also developed in closed spaces where the main objectives of the use of these spaces are commercial or service-oriented. In the case of Matamoros, Implan has located 12 commercial centers that are regularly mentioned as shopping places and occasional sites of family outings; the majority are located on significant avenues and distributed at different points throughout the city.

Additionally, there are at least eight sports centers, some private and others related to schools or restricted to sports teams that compete in amateur sports leagues. There are five community centers, called Tamules, which were created recently and can be a great help in promoting gathering, mainly for those who live around those centers.

According to Table 1, we calculated the square meters per inhabitant, both on the urban level and for the neighborhoods in the sample: There are 422,891.24 m² of green space (in the locality), divided by the population of the locality (449,815 inhab.), giving us 0.94 m²/inhabitant.

Table 1: Green spaces per inhabitant in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, 2010 

Source: Authors' calculations based on the 2010 population and housing census (Instituto Nacional de Estadística, Geografía e Informática [Inegi], 2011) and the Implan Matamoros (2012).

In this case, the square meters per inhabitant of an upper-middle-class sector, such as the Las Arboledas neighborhood, stands out in comparison to the other two neighborhoods; Lomas de San Juan and Cima 3 are residential developments built using Infonavit housing credits. Unfortunately, sufficient green spaces were not built into these residential developments, whereas in Las Arboledas, the green spaces were considered part of the promotional attraction of the residential development.

Sociodemographic characteristics of the inhabitants of Matamoros and the neighborhoods studied

The data presented refer exclusively to the inhabitants of the municipal seat, which in general contains 90% of the population of Matamoros. Some characteristics should be highlighted about the sample neighborhoods. First, according to the neighborhoods' locations and ages, Cima 3 is the youngest of the three, first populated in 2006. It is a neighborhood that, despite not being in flood zones according to the official information, has flooded several times according to the press (^{Martínez, 2012}).

The Lomas de San Juan neighborhood is the largest of the three neighborhoods considered and is, to a certain extent, more heterogeneous because it has small 64 m² houses together with houses that are larger than 100 m². Like the Cima 3 neighborhood, together with other neighborhoods, it has suffered the abandonment of houses by inhabitants who could not continue to pay their housing credit due to the unemployment crises that have occurred in border cities.⁹ One newspaper has reported at least 80 abandoned houses in the Lomas de San Juan neighborhood since the beginning of 2011 (^{Valle, 2011}).

The Las Arboledas neighborhood is the oldest of the three. One of the interviewees informs us that he has lived in Las Arboledas for more than 24 years and bought his house using a bank loan. The neighborhood has sections in which only the lot was sold and the home was constructed according to the taste or means of the inhabitant. This is in contrast to the other two residential developments, which are more uniform in the design of the houses.

An indicator of the age of the Las Arboledas neighborhood can be found in the proportions of the adult population and those younger than 15 years. These proportions allow us to consider families whose life-cycle is approaching the "empty nest" stage, when the children leave to form their new family. For this reason, in Las Arboledas, the percentage of people older than 60 years is higher than in the other two neighborhoods.

One of the indicators that reflects the social stratum of the inhabitants of these three neighborhoods is the education level of their residents. Compared with Cima 3 and Lomas de San Juan, more professionals and people with higher incomes live in Las Arboledas, as observed in Table 2.

Table 2: Distribution of the population according to age group by municipality and neighborhoods in the study, 2010 

Source: Authors' table created from the database of the Área Geoestadística Básica (AGEB), which comes from the 2010 population and housing census (^{Inegi, 2011}).

Another datum that tells us about the age of the neighborhood is the impact of migration. Being the newest neighborhood of the three, Cima 3 has a higher rate of migrants than the other two, while Las Arboledas presents the lowest rate. This datum can also reflect levels of social interaction. One could suppose that the more time a person has spent living in a neighborhood, the higher his or her probability of increasing ties with the neighbors; nevertheless, as deduced from the interviews, this tendency is not always manifested (Table 3).¹⁰

Table 3: Sociodemographic indicators in Matamoros and in the neighborhoods of the study, 2010 

Source: Authors' table based on data by AGEB, which comes from the 2010 population and housing census (Inegi, 2011).

Spaces of social interaction and primary groups: Neighbors, friend groups, common interest groups, extended family

With the aim of determining whether the structure of the interviewees' primary network and its connection to spaces of social interaction is maintained or whether it changes as a result of the insecurity that the interviewees perceive, we will analyze the results of the interviews conducted.

Gathering places before and after the insecurity or the intensification of the violence

An activity unique to the young people was what they call rol, performed in cars; this activity began occurring regularly on two streets, the Paseo de la Reforma and Álvaro Obregón Street. As one young person notes:

I remember before, when I was in high school, we would go out usually, I remember one meeting point was the Paseo de la Reforma, we were always there, the police would come, we would get in the cars, and ten minutes later, we'd be there again, they wouldn't say anything at all (^{Jurado, 2013}).

Another public place that was often visited by young people was Bagdad Beach, and their comments express how these places were part of a set of fun weekend activities that established the necessary places for social interaction and getting together. These activities began in the street where youth made plans and chatted and then continued in the clubs and ended up on the beach. As commented in the group: "The beach, too, you remember, we would go at all hours, sometimes we'd come out of the club and go, or at 12 at night, we would go for a stroll"¹² (^{Jurado, 2013}).

Another popular event on the beach was organized by the students of the Tecnológico Regional de Matamoros. During Easter week, they would get together, beer companies would set up shop, and the beach would become a party place. Now, according to the perception of the focus group participants, to hold that event, it is necessary to ask permission from the criminal groups who have taken over such recreational spaces. Some young people comment that even the beer companies have been affected:

That's how it is, to do something you practically have to ask permission, they say yes, in the case of bars, but they say, let me ask permission from those people (in this case permission for the party on the beach), because you can have music and then suddenly these people show up and tell you to lower the music or everything is over, get out, shut it down, just because they say so (^{Jurado, 2013}).

For this reason, one young man's conclusion is clear: "really they have taken over our things, there is no respect for the government... they have hands in everything" (^{Jurado, 2013}).

Obregón Street was the place for tourism and youth nightlife. During the day, tourists went to restaurants on that street or saw dentists or doctors located in the commercial and services corridor, while at night, young people did their rol and visited the nightclubs known as antros. Currently, the social practice of the rol has disappeared, despite the efforts of the young people who tried to revive it but did not have support from the authorities: "Even, not long ago, using social networks, we agreed to open the roles again, all of us got together, but then when we got there and people were getting together, these people showed up and again, let's get out of here" (^{Jurado, 2013}).

This situation is in contrast to those of other cities such as Tijuana, where, after the violence and the lack of tourism on Revolución Street, young people and national tourism took over this space. In Matamoros, Obregón Street remains empty, as the young people say:

No, Álvaro Obregón has lots of empty spaces, it's dead. If you go on a Friday night to Álvaro Obregón, where before it would be full, that street is where people did the rol, it's empty and that was the place where the clubs were, the antros and all that, and now everything is desolate (^{Jurado, 2013}).

Now, the social interaction spaces extend to Brownsville. Various young people tell us about places that they visit in that US border city. These places are usually public spaces for consumption, such as restaurants, bars and clubs that were in some cases founded in Matamoros and are now located in Brownsville. However, they also include concerts: "Even the concerts that radio stations would hold aren't done anymore; if they do them, they do them in Brownsville" (^{Jurado, 2013}).

The only action that the government has implemented to revitalize social interaction in open spaces is to manage events with the best security possible. It seems that unless there is an evident and large security presence, people do not go to public places that offer open shows. As the young people tell us:

And there was a lot of security at the TRI concert, it was impressive. What really drew my attention was a concert that was held in the plaza... I think that's the strategy right, tons of security so people can go (^{Jurado, 2013}).

Conclusions

In Matamoros, we see a municipal strategy of centralizing public spaces. After listening to the interviews and conducting a focus group, we conclude that this strategy can be a mistake because the population has difficulties commuting daily toward the center of the city. Their movement is limited due to their daily work routines, their low incomes or the peripheral location of the residential developments where they live. Social interaction in these concentrated public spaces, at a certain point, becomes not daily but rather extraordinary, limited to when there is an event, or weekly, when it is possible to go out with one's family.

Criminal groups use the main avenues of the city as their workspaces or as their escape routes from the threat of the military. For this reason, people are afraid to move from their neighborhoods toward the center of the city; the less distance that people travel, the better it is for them because limiting their travel increases their sense of security. For this reason, they are implicitly asking the municipal government to invest in the public lots close to their homes.

Daily social interaction requires nearby spaces; the majority of the interviewees note the lack of green space in their neighborhood. The advantages of green space are enormous because this space would spare them the need to travel, giving them more time for social contact with a greater number of closer people, increased social interaction with their neighbors, which is currently very rare, and a strengthening of activities for children.

The issue of spaces close to home is important in the populous sectors, which have small houses that do not make intimate social interaction or personal activities very easy.

We should also take into account the different dimensions of personal social interaction- games, conversations, health, strengthening of identity and learning-to determine the profiles of public space. To date, this and other cases show us that public space is losing ground in the struggle for family and personal social interaction due to the "preference" for private spaces (the home) or semi-public spaces (commercial centers, schools and restaurants).

This privatizing tendency and this deficit already existed before the context of violence and insecurity, and they are reaffirmed with the limitations imposed by the actions of criminal groups. The structure of social interaction spaces does not change; however, their accessibility and use do, such that primary groups continue to meet in private or semi-public spaces but not with the same frequency or intensity. In the fight for public space, the criminal groups manage to impose unwritten norms and rules on some, such as on the beach or in the streets where young people would do their rol. Even taking into account that public space is not mainly defined by its territorial nature, we can say that in the case of the rol, the power of criminal groups is causing the disappearance of one of the most important public spaces for young university students.

This struggle for public space, above all tied to the access routes to different social interaction spaces, is being won by the actions of criminals, such that these groups are becoming highly powerful actors that clearly limit the population's mobility and ability to strengthen and expand their personal and social networks.