Accused rate by selected offences

Relevance/Result

A group of the permanent resident population with above-average accused rates for a selection of offences could indicate insufficient integration in society. The offences were selected on the basis of the following criteria:

- linked to the accused’s social situation (theft, for example);
- linked to the opportunities and hurdles present in the accused's future prospects and the construction of their identity in the society in which they live (violent offences such as common assault).

Offences related to domestic violence were excluded from this analysis as they concern a separate issue. In order to compare a group that is relevant from a criminological point of view, the indicator shown here focuses on men aged 18 to 32 who live permanently in Switzerland. A link has been shown to exist between crime and a person’s age and gender.

According to Kuhn, young men represent a typical profile universally and at all times. They are likely to commit offences to make themselves stand out (demonstrating their existence) as a “reaction to their poorly structured social position”. As soon as a person’s social identity is established, criminality decreases: in other words, it decreases the older a person becomes [André Kuhn, Sommes-nous tous des criminels? Brief introduction to criminology, Charmey: Les Ed. de l'Hèbe, 2012].

Restriction: Nationality is not a criminogenic factor, except for persons from a country at war. Apart from the person’s sex and age, no socio-economic data are available in the police crime statistics (PCS) that would enable causality to be assessed. Only accused persons whose offences have been solved by the police are available.

The young men aged 18 to 34 belong to a particular group and it would be difficult to make generalisations based on the results. As the number of cases is small, these results should be interpreted with caution.

In the cumulated years 2015 to 2019, regardless of the offence observed here, citizens of EU28 and EFTA member countries always show accused rates among men aged 18 to 34 more or less similar to those of Swiss citizens. Regarding serious assault (art. 122 SCC), the highest rates are found among men from other European countries and from the rest of the world (approx. 3‰ for the first two groups compared with 1‰ for Swiss nationals). For cases of common assault and robbery, young men from the same groups of nationality show higher rates again (approx.. 21‰ and 5‰ compared with 8‰ and 2‰ for Swiss nationals). In contrast, for cases of theft, citizens from the rest of the world stand out with the highest rate (41‰ compared with 17‰ for Swiss citizens, i.e. more than 2 times higher).

Data from the PCS do not allow a breakdown of the results by socio-economic variables such as level of education, social status, income, solidarity within a family or community network or by demographic variables such as length of stay, place of birth or reason for migration. As this problem is the result of a lack of social integration, indicators on the socio-economic situation of the different population groups need to be considered (see the other integration indicators).

Definitions

An accused person is anyone who is suspected, accused or charged by a penal authority with an offence in a report to the police, in a penal complaint or in a procedural act. However, it should be borne in mind that an accused person is presumed innocent until judgement is passed.

The offences for this indicator are:

- Serious assault (definition from art. 122 SCC). Any person who intentionally inflicts a life-threatening injury on another, any person who intentionally inflicts serious injury on the person, or on an important organ or limb of another, makes an important organ or limb unusable, makes another permanently unfit for work, infirm or mentally ill, or who disfigures the face of another badly and permanently, any person who intentionally causes any other serious damage to the person or to the physical or mental health of another.

- Common assault (definition from art. 123 SCC): any person who wilfully causes injury to the persons or the health of another in any other way.

- Theft (definition from art. 139 SCC): any person who for his own or for another's unlawful gain, appropriates moveable property belonging to another person with the object of permanently depriving the owner of it.

- Robbery (definition from art. 140 SCC): Any person who commits theft by using force on another, threatening another with imminent danger to life or limb, or making another incapable of resistance.

The difficulty with the accused rate is that there are many areas of hidden crime:

- unknown number of offences that are not reported to the police;
- unknown number of offences that are not solved.

For this reason, the accused rate cannot reflect the actual crime rate but at best the crime rate calculated, for various groups, based on police reports.

Calculation method:

The accused rate represents the number of accused men aged 18 to 34 identified for each of the offences selected during 5 years, calculated per 1000 inhabitants in the average permanent resident population excluding persons in the asylum process who have been in Switzerland for at least one year (population's arithmetic mean over 5 years): these represent the population most likely to have deviant behaviour with regards to the law.

In contrast to the Population and household statistics (STATPOP), persons in the asylum process who have been in Switzerland for at least one year are not considered as part of the resident population in the Police Crime Statistics (PCS). These statistics continue to consider these persons in the context of asylum, due to a lack of information about the length of their stay.

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All indicators

Some 68 indicators describe the current situation and changes in the integration of the population with a migration background and/or of foreign nationals in Switzerland in eleven areas of life in our society.

Key indicators

34 key indicators provide an overview of the progress made on the journey towards integration and the state of integration of the population with a migration background. If this information is lacking, the population is shown by nationality, and where this variable is available, the country of birth.