The number of prisoners in Switzerland is the lowest since 2011
A total of 6316 persons were incarcerated in the Confederation, occupying 85.4 percent of the available places in the 92 deprivation of liberty institutions
On January 31, 2021, Switzerland had 6316 persons incarcerated, which corresponds to a decrease in the total number of 8.4 percent compared to the same day in the previous year.
Most detained persons (65 percent) were serving a sentence or executing a measure (including early execution), while 1986 persons (31 percent) were in preventive or security detention and 235 persons (4 percent) were in prison for other reasons.
Imprisonment, Prison population on reference day
Imprisonment, pre-trial detention by canton, sex, age and nationality
The proportion of people in prison was 73 per 100,000 inhabitants, according to the Deprivation of Liberty Survey conducted by the Federal Statistical Office (FSO). The number of detainees in Switzerland is also the lowest since 2011.
The number of inmates in Switzerland is the lowest since 2011: 85.4% of the 7397 places available in the 92 detention facilities were occupied.
Despite a reduction in the number of correctional facilities between 2020 and 2021, the total capacity of these facilities increased by 24 detention places.
This also confirms the trend of closing smaller institutions in preference to those that can accommodate a larger number of people.
Slight increase in the number of people in pre-trial detention
On the reference day, there were 1986 persons in pre-trial detention or security detention in Switzerland, which corresponds to an increase of 4.4 percent compared to January 31, 2020.
Most of them were male (92.7%) and more than three quarters of them were over 24 years old (76.4%).
In contrast, between the end of January 2020 and the end of January 2021, the number of persons detained declined for all other forms of deprivation of liberty.
This decline ranged from 10 percent of (early) execution of sentences or measures to 57 percent of coercive measures under the Federal Aliens and Integration Act (FISA).
Decline in incarcerations and days in detention in 2020
The number of detention days spent in correctional facilities decreased by 8 percent in 2020 compared to 2019.
When looking at other types of detention, the proportion that experienced the sharpest decline was those detained with coercive measures under the LstrI (Federal Law
on Foreigners and their Integration), which recorded a decrease of 36.4 percent.
Imprisonment, Penal institutions on reference day
Imprisonment, deaths and suicides
Calculating the average number of people detained per day, i.e., dividing the total number of days of detention by the number of days that make up a year, an average of 6277 people were detained every day in Switzerland in 2020 (2019: 6845 people).
In contrast, the total number of incarcerations decreased by 13.4 percent, from 47,588 in 2019 to 41,224 in 2020.
