IN AN attempt to halt gang violence, Barcelona has taken the unusual step of legalising the Latin Kings, registering them as a cultural association that could receive state aid.

The feared gang, which was born in 1940s Chicago and has recently spread to Spain, was this week granted the grand title of Asociación Cultural de Reyes y Reinas Latinos de Cataluña (Cultural Association of Latin Kings and Queens of Catalonia), making it sound more like a medieval court than a band of street thugs.

However, the city believes that the way to curb escalating violence is to involve the gang’s teenage members in city life.

Jordi Portabella, the acting Mayor of Barcelona, praised the courage of the Latin Kings’ leadership, hailing its decision to abandon violence as a success with “few precedents in Europe and the world”. Barcelona is also moving to legalise the Latin Kings’ main rivals, the Ñetas (Newborn).

The deputy mayor said that the Latin Kings would receive “the same treatment as other associations” and be eligible for local government grants “depending on the repercussion of their activities”. It was not immediately clear what sort of work they had in mind for the gang, which is thought to have acquired more than 400 members in Spain since setting up the local chapter about five years ago.

A New York priest with long experience of working with gangs in the Bronx helped to broker the deal with Barcelona’s gangs in two years of difficult negotiations. “They decided they wanted to be more acceptable, more respected,” Luis Barrios told The Times.

The decision of the Catalan government sets up a potential clash with Madrid and could be overturned by the courts. The Civil Guard said that it still considered both gangs to be criminal groups and would continue to pursue them around the country.

The arrival of street gangs in Spain has been accompanied by much handwringing in a country unused to large-scale immigration from its former colonies. The Latin Kings and the Ñetas in Spain are predominantly made up of Ecuadorean teenagers, who arrived with their parents in the past decade but who have been unable to integrate fully into Spanish society. Colombian, Brazilian and some Central American youths also belong in smaller numbers.

Many South and Central Americans say that they are looked down on by Spaniards. Their children say that they feel that they belong neither in Spain nor in their country of origin.

“Adrián”, an Ecuadorean gang member interviewed last year by El País newspaper, explained how he had been unable to make Spanish friends after arriving in Spain at 14 years of age. He had endured a savage beating by older gang members to be allowed into the Latin Kings, and had to pay weekly dues. “The Latin Kings aren’t an association,” he said.

“They’re a nation. They’re my people, my brothers.”

Anthropologists have estimated that up to 5 per cent of the 50,000 Latin Americans in Barcelona belong to a gang. Señor Barrios said that he expected the newly legalised Latin Kings to try to educate local people about what it is like to be a Latino or Latina in Barcelona, adding that the group could become an important social movement in Spain.