The crime situation in the Swiss Confederation is almost ideal compared to many other states. For every 100,000 residents of this country, there are 60 to 80 prisoners. For example, in Brazil there are 350, in the USA - 700, in Ukraine - 4,000 people.
In all of Switzerland, with a population of about 7 million people, about 10,000 citizens are under the control of the penitentiary system, of which 5,000 are serving sentences in places of imprisonment, 3,000 are conditionally sentenced and engaged in forced labor, and 2,000 are under investigation.
The main difference between the Swiss penitentiary system and similar structures of other countries is the absence of a penal enforcement code. Issues related to conviction and serving sentences are reflected in several articles of the Confederation's criminal code, which are of a recommendatory nature, and final decisions on punishment are made by the relevant structures of the country's 23 cantons, which are vested with appropriate powers.
In Switzerland there are two types of criminal punishment: serving a prison sentence and a conditional sentence, which is imposed for a period of up to 18 months. If the convicted person violates the conditions of serving the sentence at large, the canton court renders a verdict to change the preventive measure to one involving imprisonment.
The Swiss government invests huge sums of money in the country's penitentiary sector. An example is Geneva prison, for the construction of which 400 million euros were allocated. Today, each administrative canton has its own prison, where pretrial detainees and those convicted of various types of crimes are held together, numbering 100-130 people. Each correctional institution has its own production workshops and auxiliary farms, where prisoners can work at will.
Prison administration staff perform only regime and educational-rehabilitation functions; they do not provide prison security (there are other services for this). In the Confederation's correctional institutions, there is an institute of psychologists who conduct individual work with prisoners. A contact person is assigned to each convicted person to provide assistance on any issues that arise. Prisoners undergo courses to acquire new professions, and drug addicts and alcoholics undergo rehabilitation.
The structure of the "clients" of the Swiss penitentiary system is as follows: about 40% of convicts serve sentences for property crimes, about 10% for murder and violent crimes, about 30% for drug-related crimes, and other types of crimes.
Despite different quantitative indicators and conditions of detention in places of imprisonment, we have common problems that law enforcement and penitentiary personnel are trying to solve with varying degrees of success.
For example, the main problem for the penal enforcement system of the Alpine republic, as for similar agencies in other countries, is recidivism. 50% of people released from prison return to places of imprisonment within the next five years. Such indicators prove that no social measures can improve the situation of a criminal if the person himself does not want to stop his criminal activity. Ultimately, the individual himself decides the main issues related to his lifestyle and moral values.
A significant problem for Swiss prisons remains the detention of HIV-infected and AIDS-suffering prisoners. At the time such people appeared in places of imprisonment, other prisoners began to oppress them; they became outcasts in prisons. The leadership of the Confederation's penitentiary system was forced to organize a propaganda "landing force" consisting of penal enforcement staff, medical workers, and psychologists, which carried out educational work.
Such measures had a positive effect on convicts. As a result, this problem was removed from the agenda. "Risk groups" began to coexist peacefully with the main mass of those serving sentences. Preventive measures are also carried out among prisoners to prevent HIV infection. Convicts began to be given explanatory brochures and hygiene kits, and machines with disposable syringes were installed in many prisons.
Among the HIV-infected themselves, a special rehabilitation program is being conducted, called the "one-day program", the first half of which includes work in production workshops or auxiliary farms of institutions, and in the second half of the day creative work according to interests is organized or rehabilitation meetings with psychologists are held.
A headache in Swiss prisons, as throughout the world, are drug users, who make up 10-15% of the total number of prisoners. Special rehabilitation measures are carried out with them to promote refusal from drug use. Every evening they take rapid tests that determine the fact of drug use. If such a fact is detected, the prison administration imposes a fine on the convict.
The administration of Swiss prisons pays great attention to the humanitarian education of convicts - through organizing care for agricultural and domestic animals. Each prison has a "farmyard" where cattle, sheep, poultry, pigs, and horses are kept, and prisoners take care of them.
Psychologists of the Swiss penitentiary system believe that familiarization with nature and animals is the best stimulator in the correction of prisoners. In some prisons, the administration signs contracts with convicts for raising and keeping cats in room-type cells, in which a provision runs like a red thread that the prisoner undertakes not to beat or cause pain to animals.
Despite the rather idyllic picture that characterizes Swiss prisons, this country still sees an increase in the number of persons committing crimes against property and person. As the practice of various countries shows, involvement in a criminal lifestyle is primarily linked to the habit of obtaining money by easy means, without making much effort.