Convicted adults

Nationality of the convicted persons

Annual number of adults recorded in the register of convictions. Details are available of the personal characteristics by offence.

Regardless of the number of convictions, each person is counted only once each year.

Information on age, sex and nationality have been presented per law and offence in detail since 1984. This statistical information are available at national and in almost all cases at cantonal level.

Convicted persons 2021
	Total	SCC	RTA	NarcA	FNIA
Total adults¹	88 175	30 669	47 988	4 705	13 057
Sex
male	72 333	24 760	39 801	4 165	11 106
female	15 842	5 909	8 187	540	1 951
Age
18 - 24 years	17 058	6 175	8 703	1 234	3 001
25 - 34 years	25 794	8 506	13 364	1 606	5 271
35 - 44 years	19 275	6 881	10 241	1 099	2 972
45 - 59 years	18 620	6 505	11 000	648	1 544
60 years and older	7 428	2 602	4 680	118	269
Nationality
Switzerland	38 175	13 832	23 600	2 167	455
Resident foreigners in Switzerland (without asylum)	23 556	8 628	14 653	970	958
other foreigners	26 444	8 209	9 735	1 568	11 644

¹ For adults, only felonies and misdemeanours are included, because contraventions are only recorded in the register of convictions as an exception.

SCC: Swiss Criminal Code
RTA: Road Traffic Act
NarcA: Narcotics Act
FNIA: Foreign Nationals and Integration Act Source: Criminal conviction statistics (SUS), state of the Register of Criminal Conduct: 22.04.2022

Nationality of the convicted persons

Since the year 2020, the FSO publishes detailed tables on convictions by nationality. Data are also available for the years of 2014 to 2019. For these years, however, many countries had to be grouped into regions, as the information contained in the criminal conviction statistics revealed some uncertainties.

To eliminate these uncertainties, the data for 2020 were for the first time compared to the one from the population statistics and were adjusted. For each person in the resident population, nationality and residence status were taken from the population statistics. By doing so, it is ensured that the calculated conviction rates - i.e. the number of convicted persons per 1000 inhabitants - are correct for each nationality.

In the explanatory report on the limitations of criminal conviction statistics in comparing crime rates of various population groups by nationality, a detailed description of measures taken to ensure the data quality and of the available tables is presented.

The data are broken down by sex and age for the Criminal Code, the Road Traffic Act, the Federal Act on Foreign Nationals and the Federal Act on Narcotics and Psychotropic Substances.

For each law, one table contains figures (absolute figures and conviction rates) for Swiss nationals and foreign nationals with a B or C permit. Another table shows the other foreign convicts.

Procedure and limits of evaluations by nationality

Comparability of results by nationality
A comparison of the number of convicted persons by nationality is only possible to a limited extent. In absolute figures, Swiss nationals and persons from European countries account for the main share of convicted persons as they also make up the majority of persons residing in Switzerland. The figures on convicted persons by nationality can only be compared if one knows the size of each national group in Switzerland. This is known for the resident population. Conviction rates can be calculated on this basis. These show how many persons per 1000 inhabitants with the same nationality have been convicted and recorded in the register of criminal convictions. The size of the national group therefore is no longer of any importance once the conviction rates have been calculated (see box with methodological clarifications). When comparing criminality, the calculation of conviction rates is standard practice internationally.

Convicted Swiss and foreign nationals with a B or C permit
Nationality data are listed in two tables. The first table shows data on Swiss nationals and persons with a B or C permit in absolute figures and in the form of conviction rates. The calculation of conviction rates is only possible for Swiss nationals and persons with a B or C permit. All other groups of the resident population show too many fluctuations over the calendar year to allow precise conviction rates (see box with methodological clarifications for information on fluctuations).

For conviction rates, it should be considered that the influence of one individual convicted person is very significant among nationalities with very few long-term Swiss residents. For example, if among the Danish the conviction rate increases by 0.3% for every further convicted person, for Monacans resident in Switzerland every further conviction would mean a 50% increase.

This influence is shown in the table. The conviction statistics include information about age and gender. These two variables have a considerable influence on the likelihood of committing a crime. As the national groups of persons do not have the same composition in terms of gender and age, the results for men and women are shown separately by age group. The results show the different conviction rates for the individual nationalities.

However, this does not prove that there is a causal relationship between nationality and delinquent behaviour. Many factors such as the standard of living or educational level that influence the behaviour of persons cannot be determined from the conviction statistics and are not considered in the analyses.

Other convicted foreign nationals
The second table groups together all foreign persons who hold neither a B nor a C permit in the "other foreigners" category. In addition to persons with an asylum background and holders of a short-term residence permit, this group also includes persons residing in Switzerland either as tourists or illegally. This table contains only absolute figures as the calculation of conviction rates is not possible. The absolute figures are shown separately for every nationality by gender and age.

Missing values for permit status
For some nationalities, the share of missing permit status data, however, was very high. As the persons in these cases may hold a B/C permit or form part of the category of other foreign nationals, values have been calculated and shown for both possibilities. This means that these cases have been counted once among foreign nationals with a B or C permit and once among other foreign nationals. This thus gives the minimum and maximum values for both the absolute figures as well as persons with a B or C permit in the case of conviction rates (see box with methodological clarifications for missing values).

Methodological clarifications

Calculation of conviction rates
To be able to better assess criminal behaviour within the various nationalities, it is necessary to put the number of convicted persons in relation to the corresponding resident population. It should therefore be calculated how many convicted persons there are per 1000 persons of the corresponding resident population.

Fluctuation of population groups
The calculation of conviction rates is only possible if the population group concerned does not change too significantly over the year, i.e. the fluctuation should not be too large. Fluctuations occur if a person resides in Switzerland for only a few months or if a person changes their permit status during the year.

Stable population groups are important because convicted persons are correlated with data from the population statistics in the calculation of conviction rates. The population statistics are compiled using permit status data valid as at 31 December of the corresponding year. However, data from the conviction statistics are recorded over the entire year. For population groups with a high level of fluctuation (e.g. persons with an asylum background), it is very likely that permit status information from the conviction statistics is not consistent with data from the population statistics.

Necessary grouping together of nationalities (2014-2019)
Between 2008 and 2014, 21% of all convicted persons were recorded in the register of criminal convictions several times. 3.4% of these recidivists were registered with at least two different nationalities. A proportion of these changing nationalities may be explained by naturalisations. The remaining share of 2.7% is mainly comprised of persons registered with two nationalities from the former Yugoslavia, USSR or Czechoslovakia. After the grouping together of these areas there remains only 0.4% persons with non-plausible changes of nationality. This share was reduced to 0.2% with the grouping of Africa into 7 regions and the grouping of the Near East.

Publication to be downloaded in German or in French

Tables relative to the nationality of the convicted persons

Tables relative to the nationality of the convicted persons

Further information

Tables on total of convicted persons

Tables on Swiss Criminal Code

Tables on Road Traffic Act

Tables on Narcotics Act

Tables on Foreign Nationals and Integration Act

All tables on the topic Criminal justice

Publication to be downloaded in German

Publication to be downloaded in French

All press releases on the topic Criminal justice

Historical data

Historical data on minors and adults 1946-1984

The Federal Statistical Office's collection of data on the convictions of minors and adults is based on extracts from the centrally managed register of convictions. This statistic has been compiled since 1946, and partially with data from 1936. For the years prior to 1948, statistical results are available in the form of tables, copies of which can be consulted or downloaded.

The continuation of the historical time series for minors can be found for the years 1984-1998 under "Historical data, minors, 1984-1998".

Detailed data on the convictions of minors from 1999 onwards are available on the Swiss Statistics website. Detailed conviction figures for adults are available for the years from 1984 onwards.

The historical conviction data cannot be compared with one another nor with data from the current data collection. Data must first be harmonised and aligned with population data.