Switzerland's Conviction Rates Are Rising – But Immigration Isn't the Simple Explanation You Think

Switzerland has a crime problem. Or maybe it doesn't. Depending on which statistic you pull from the federal government's latest releases, the picture is messy, contradictory, and – if you dig deep enough – genuinely surprising.

The Police Criminal Statistics (PKS) have shown an increase in serious violent crime for several years. Last year, for the first time since the pandemic, overall recorded crime actually fell. That would normally be cause for cautious optimism. But the data remains uneven, and one trend appears unbroken: people without a Swiss passport are convicted at a disproportionately high rate.

Now comes a second dataset. On Monday, the federal government published its conviction statistics. Unlike the PKS, which records all crimes that come to police attention, this newer release only includes proven offences that can be assigned to a specific perpetrator. The police data reacts faster to trends, but conviction statistics offer more precise information about who the offenders actually are. Experts say you need both to get a reliable picture.

And the conviction statistics confirm the basic finding: Swiss citizens are significantly less likely to be convicted. The share of convictions handed down to people without a Swiss passport is disproportionately high – and rising.

One common objection is that these numbers include offences under the Foreign Nationals Act that Swiss citizens cannot commit, such as illegal residence. Remove those, the argument goes, and the gap might shrink. But even after stripping out that category, the overall finding does not change.

Of 95,424 convictions, 52,243 – or 54.7 percent – were against people without a Swiss passport. That share is twice as high as the foreign resident population share of 27 percent. If you look only at core criminal law and also set aside traffic offences, the share rises to 63.4 percent. Ten years ago, that figure was 58 percent.

So immigration must be the main driver, right? Not so fast.

Between 2015 and 2025, the number of core criminal law convictions against Swiss passport holders actually fell slightly, from 15,403 to 14,070. Meanwhile, the foreign resident population grew by just over 20 percent. But the number of convictions of non-citizens rose by only six percent over the same period. That is a much smaller increase than the population growth would suggest.

So why are people without a Swiss passport being blamed for the rise in crime? The answer only becomes clear when you look inside the group.

The sharpest increase is among people without a residence or settlement permit – in other words, those without a regular long-term legal status in Switzerland. Between 2015 and 2025, convictions in this group jumped by nearly 35 percent, from 10,729 to 14,476. This category includes asylum seekers, temporarily admitted persons, people with S protection status, cross-border commuters, and so-called "criminal tourists." It does not include recognised refugees who hold a residence permit.

The number of people without long-term regular status is also growing, but from a much lower base. These figures are also harder to capture statistically.

Go back further, to 2007, and the picture becomes even clearer. The conviction rate for Swiss citizens has remained practically stable since then. For foreigners with a residence or settlement permit, it has increased by 50 percent. But that group's population has grown by over 55 percent. Immigration into the labour market, in other words, has a stabilising effect when it comes to crime.

The real outlier? Convictions of people without a long-term regular residence in Switzerland have more than tripled since 2007.

What the numbers do not directly show is whether those convicted were primarily criminal tourists or people from the asylum system. Law enforcement experience suggests both are happening. And there have been wave movements. Convictions of foreign nationals without a fixed residence already climbed to nearly today's level in the early 2010s, driven by increased migration from the Arab Spring and the Syrian war, as well as active burglar gangs. After 2013, crime by people without residence status declined for several years – thanks in part to better international police cooperation and a temporary flattening of asylum numbers.

So the next time someone blames immigration for rising crime, the data suggests asking a follow-up question: which immigration? The person with a work permit and a lease? Or the one with neither? The statistics are clear. The conversation rarely is.

Written by Thomas Nussbaumer