Crimmigration & Racialization: The Case of Switzerland

• In Event: : Imprisonment, Racialization and Right-Wing Populism in Europe I

Abstract

In the early 1980s, foreigners constituted 30% of Switzerland's prison population. By 2020, this figure had surged to over 70%, marking a significant reversal over four decades. Analysis of criminal law and penal statistics shows that this shift is mainly due to the heightened criminalization of what is perceived as undesirable immigration. Immigration management has become one of the major functions of Swiss prisons.

By incorporating criteria such as "cultural distance", the legislation has enshrined in practice a differential treatment of immigrants depending on whether or not their country of origin belongs to the space of Western whiteness. In the era of European racelessness, these trends expose the racial implicit underpinning of the Swiss penal and migration regime. Through its specific treatment of illegal immigrants, the penal system itself appears to produce inequalities based on race. By attaching symbolic representations and materiality to it, prison and the penal system actively participate in reproducing race as an operative social category.

Author

• Luca Gnaedinger, Université de Neuchâtel