Prisons: Vaud and Geneva in the face of overcrowding

While overcrowding in prisons in French -speaking Switzerland regularly makes the front page, the most often advanced response is to build new establishments. However, this approach does not take into account the deep causes of prison engorgement, linked to the criminal policies in force. This is what the French laboratory highlights on prison decreases, founded at the University of Geneva (Unige) in 2024, in a report published today.

This document is the first in a series of publications to be published on this theme. Supported by the Swiss National Fund (FNS), these works mainly relate to the cantons of Vaud and Geneva. In European comparison, Switzerland has a relatively low incarceration rate. But this national average masks important disparities: German -speaking Switzerland incarcerates much less than Latin Switzerland, especially Vaud and Geneva, where prisons overflow.

How to explain these differences, when the legal framework is identical throughout the country? For the past year, the French laboratory on prison decrease has been working to answer this question. Based on empirical and comparative data, it deconstructs three received ideas which slow down an in -depth reform of criminal and criminal policy.

To explain prison overcrowding in French -speaking Switzerland, and in particular in the cantons of Vaud and Geneva, the lack of detention places, the specifics of crime prevailing in these cantons and the lack of room for maneuver left by criminal law are often invoked. These statements are not based on scientific studies. None of these three arguments explains this phenomenon.

The number of prison places available per capita is currently significantly higher in Geneva and Vaud than in the rest of Switzerland. The detention rate is higher in Geneva and Vaud than in other cantons. The contrast is particularly marked with German -speaking Switzerland. The average rate of detention of German -speaking Switzerland is close to that of the Nordic countries – the least incarcerating European – while that of Geneva and Vaud resembles, or even exceeds, that of the most incarcerating European countries.

There is a strong stability over time of the recourse to prison on an average Swiss in the past 25 years. On the other hand, while the detention rate of Geneva and Vaud was only slightly higher than the Swiss average in 2000, it has increased sharply since then. Geneva stands out clearly from the rest of Switzerland with, for more than a decade, a rate of detention constantly 2.5 to 3 times higher than that of German -speaking Switzerland.

The study of crime figures does not show specificities for Geneva and Vaud that can explain these differences. Overall, crime has decreased for fifteen years, in particular with regard to burglaries and offenses to the drug law, however often invoked as reasons for prison overcrowding. The other cantons (notably the large urban cantons and close to the border like Basel and Zurich, whose evolution of crime is similar) are subject to the same criminal law, without making the same extensive use of detention.

This comparison indicates that there is a margin of interpretation of the legal framework, different priorities set by criminal policy and specific cantonal practices in criminal matters. “These results show that prison overcrowding is not inevitable,” said Julie de Dardel, who led the study. “The French laboratory on prison decrease therefore calls for a public debate based on proposals from objective data. He recommends reducing the use of incarceration rather than further extending the penitentiary park. ”

Several levers of action exist such as, firstly, recognize the influence of different criminal cultures within the country, but also reduce the use of pre -trial detention, renounce converting fines into prison terms, or even strengthening alternatives to incarceration. The first in a series, this brief report will be followed, in the coming months, by other publications which will analyze the main causes of the innercarceration, as well as the avenues of action to remedy it.

Made up of personalities from the political, judicial world, civil society and academics, the French laboratory on prison decreases is based on scientific analyzes. This participative research system, unique in Switzerland, was instituted at UNIGE by the scientific team of the FNS project “prison decrease: geo-ethnography of prison reductionism and non-criminal alternatives” led by Julie de Dardel, professor in the Department of Geography and Environment. The laboratory is sponsored by Ruth Dreifuss, former president of the Confederation and member of the Global Policy Commission on Drugs.