A study published this week highlights Switzerland’s high prison suicide rate (20.2 per 10,000), which is second only to Latvia’s (21.7 to 10,000) in Europe.
The average prison suicide rate across the 45 European countries in the survey was 7.1 per 10,000. The rate across Swiss prisons was 20.2 per 10,000, nearly three times the average rate. In Switzerland, suicide was the main cause of death. 20.2 suicides per 10,000 inmates accounted for most of the total mortality rate of 26.2 per 10,000. Other nations in the survey had far higher overall prisoner mortality than Switzerland. In Poland, which had the highest rate, 123.8 prisoner out of every 10,000 died in 2022. Other European nations with high inmate mortality included Ukraine (101.2) and Serbia (93.6). The average overall prison mortality across Europe was 41.7 per 10,000.
With 73 inmates per 100,000, Switzerland had one of the lowest rates on incarceration in Europe, well below the average of 124 per 100,000. Nations with the highest rates included Turkey (408), Georgia (256), Azerbaijan (244) and Moldova (242). The nation with the lowest rate in the study was Liechtenstein (15), followed by Iceland (36), San Marino (41), Netherlands (52) and Finland (52).
Another aspect of Switzerland’s prison population that stood out is the high percentage of foreign inmates. 71% of Switzerland’s prison population were foreign nationals. Other nations with similarly high rates of foreigners were Monaco (88.5%), Liechtenstein (83.3%), Luxembourg (77.7%) and San Marino (71.4%).
Switzerland’s prison system was not suffering from overcrowding. At the end of January 2023, there were 6,445 inmates in a system with capacity for 7,196.
More on this:
COE prison report (in English)
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