Prisons almost as full as before Covid

Published29. April 2024, 3:39 p.m.

The number of prisoners was up 7% in Switzerland at the start of the year. The occupancy rate is now close to 95%.

Switzerland had 6,881 people detained on January 31, 2024, or 7% more than on January 31, 2023. This total “is close to that recorded on January 31, 2020, before the Covid pandemic,” the Federal Office announced this Monday of statistics (OFS). Health measures and border restrictions have tended to reduce crime.

The number of detention places (7,251) remains stable (+0.8%). This had the effect of increasing the occupancy rate at the national level by 5.3 percentage points. At the end of January, the occupancy rate in prison establishments was 94.9% in Switzerland. This is the highest level since 2014.

2,076 people were placed in pre-trial detention or for security reasons on January 31, 2024 (+7.9% compared to 2023). Since tracking began in 1988, this year’s total is the second highest for this category of detention. Among these 2,076 people, 6.3% were women, 22% of Swiss nationality, and more than half were detained in the cantons of Zurich, Vaud and Geneva alone.

Switzerland had 72 people in detention per 100,000 inhabitants in 2022. This is one of the lowest prison rates in Europe. Iceland is at the bottom of the scale with 39 prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants. This proportion is between 50 and 100 in Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Italy. It exceeds 100 in France, Spain and Great Britain. Poland (190), Slovakia (187) and Hungary (194) are at the top of the European table.