On 27 March 2017, the Swiss Statistics Office released 2016 crime statistics. The total number of crimes recorded by the police fell by nearly 20,000 or 4.1% compared to 2015. This brings the total decline since 2009 to 15%. Total recorded crimes in 2016 were around 468,000, far below the 553,000 recorded in 2009.
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While the total number of recorded crimes in 2016 fell compared to 2015, some crime figures rose. The largest increases in percentage terms were for document forgery (+42%), fraud (+33%), homicide (+17%), deprivation of freedom (+11%), and rape (+11%). The biggest rises in number terms were fraud (+3,875), document forgery (+2,897), sexual offenses (+573) and simple bodily injury (+406). Homicides rose from 198 to 232, and the number rapes climbed from 532 to 588.
These increases were more than cancelled out by declines in breach-of-trust crimes (-18%), muggings (-16%) and break-ins (-13%). The largest declines in numerical terms were break-in damage (-6,158), break-in theft (-5,446), depravation of freedom during break-in (-4,136), pick pocketing or deception(-3,221), and vehicle theft (-2,722).
Since 2009, the number of violent crimes has fallen 16%, the number of property related crimes has dropped 21%, and the number of crimes against liberty has fallen 12%. The only categories that have increased are sexual crimes (+10%) and document forgery (+95%).
More on this:
Swiss Statistics Office crime statistics (in French) – Take a 5 minute French test now
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