Switzerland: Foreigners make up 58% of all adults convicted in 2019

According to a study published by the Swiss Federal Statistical Office (OFS), adult foreigners represent 57.8 percent of all adults convicted in 2019.

Of all adults sentenced in 2019 for violating the law on narcotics, foreigners were responsible for 57.9 percent of cases. In the case of traffic law, it was 52 percent. 

When it comes to the country of origin, most perpetrators were from South-West Africa. According to the statistics, the rate is 30 per thousand, meaning that out of 1,000 people from Southwest Africa, 30 have committed an offense. People from West African countries come second with a rate of 21.7 per thousand.

In the following places are Jamaicans (20.5), Haitians (19), immigrants from the Dominican Republic and Yemen (17.7), and South Africans (17.6). The North African nations are in 8th place, whereas they were in 3rd place in the last survey.

The number of immigrants from the former Yugoslavia convicted of a crime has decreased to 7.6 people per thousand, which is 0.3 per thousand less than the previous year.

British and Canadian (1.2), American (1.4), Swedish, and Dutch (1.6) nationals are among the least represented in criminal conviction statistics. People of Indian nationality have the lowest conviction rate at 0.9 people per thousand, while in the case of the Swiss, it is 2.6 people per thousand.

Foreigners make up a large percentage of the population of Switzerland, accounting for 25.1 percent of all residents, however, most of these foreigners come from European Union countries such as Germany, France, and Italy. That means that only the small percentage of foreigners from regions in the Middle East, Africa, and the Caribbean account a highly disproportionate share of criminal convicts in the country. 

The data from the OFS also shows that young foreigners commit fewer offenses than foreign adults. Specifically, they are responsible for 40 percent of the crimes in their age group.

In the case of the federal law on road traffic, 29.3 percent of the offenses were committed by young foreigners. Another 25.2 percent of them broke the law on narcotics.