High suicide rate reported in Swiss prisons
More than a million people sat in European prisons in 2022. While Switzerland had a below-average number of inmates relative to its population, the suicide rate was higher.
According to a report published by the Council of Europe on Thursday, on average, 20.2 out of every 10,000 inmates in Swiss prisons took their own lives in 2022. Across Europe, this figure was 5.3, with only Latvia (21.7) having a higher suicide rate among prison inmates.
The report, which is compiled annually by the University of Lausanne on behalf of the Council of Europe, gathers data on prison inmates in Europe and is based on reports from prison authorities in 45 European countries. Only the authorities from Bosnia-Herzegovina did not provide any figures.
+ Why most of Switzerland’s prisoners are not Swiss
According to the Council of Europe, 1,036,680 people were behind bars in Europe at the end of January 2023 – 124 people per 100,000 inhabitants. This figure was highest in Turkey (408), followed by Georgia (256) and Azerbaijan (244). Switzerland had 73 inmates per 100,000 inhabitants.
Relatively high proportion of foreign nationals
At least one in four inmates in Europe had a foreign nationality, according to the Council of Europe. It said that this figure varied greatly from country to country and was lower in Central and Eastern European countries than in the rest of Europe, in line with the flow of the European population from Central, South-Eastern and Eastern Europe to Western, Southern and Northern Europe.
According to the report, 71% of inmates in Switzerland had a foreign nationality, making it the second-highest among countries with more than 500,000 inhabitants. Only in institutions in Luxembourg was this figure higher, at 78%.
Adapted from German by DeepL/kp
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