More than a million people were incarcerated in Europe in 2022. Relative to its population, Switzerland had fewer prisoners than average. However, the suicide rate in Swiss prisons was higher.
On average, 20.2 prisoners out of 10,000 committed suicide in Swiss prisons in 2022, according to a Council of Europe report on the prison population published Thursday. In Europe, this figure was 5.3. Only Latvia (21.7) had a higher suicide rate among prisoners.
The report, drawn up each year by the University of Lausanne on behalf of the Council of Europe, deals with data relating to prisoners in Europe. It is based on reports from prison authorities in 45 European states. Only the authorities of Bosnia and Herzegovina did not provide figures.
According to the Council of Europe, 1,036,680 people were behind bars in Europe at the end of January 2023, or 124 people per 100,000 inhabitants. This figure was highest in Turkey (408), then in Georgia (256) and Azerbaijan (244). Switzerland had 73 prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants.
A relatively high proportion of foreigners in Switzerland
A little more than one in four prisoners in Europe was of foreign nationality, noted the Council of Europe. This value varies greatly from one country to another. Thus, it would be lower in the countries of central and eastern Europe than in the rest of Europe. This coincides with the natural movement of the European population from central, southeastern and eastern Europe to western, southern and northern Europe.
According to the documents, this rate was 71 percent in Switzerland, the second highest among countries with more than 500,000 inhabitants.
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