Crime rises in Switzerland as sense of safety declines

Crime in Switzerland rose between 2022 and 2025, according to both police statistics and unreported cases. That is the finding of the "Crime Survey 2025", a study by the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW) and the University of St. Gallen (HSG), based on an online survey of 13,500 people aged 16 to 80 living across Switzerland. The increase mainly concerns property crime and fraud.

The sharpest rise is in fraud: over the past year, 15.9% of respondents said they had been victims, up from 8.4% in 2022. Reporting rates to the police, however, stayed almost unchanged. According to Dirk Baier, a professor at ZHAW and co-head of the project, this means the rise in recorded crime is not mainly due to a greater willingness among victims to report offences. Sexual violence is an exception: the study found no increase in victim numbers for this category.

Alongside the rise in crime, the sense of insecurity is also growing. 83.1% of respondents feel fairly or very safe walking in their neighbourhood after dark, down from 87.6% in 2022. The share of people who, over the past year, actually felt afraid of becoming a crime victim on the street has also increased. More respondents now consider police presence in public spaces insufficient: 37.9%, compared with 28.9% three years ago. Trust in the police, however, remains high.

A trend not to be dramatised

The study's authors say the decline in the sense of safety should not be read as alarming. Nora Markwalder, a professor at HSG and co-director of the project, says the trend should be taken seriously without being dramatised: despite the decline, the population still perceives Switzerland as a safe country.

A further part of the study looks at domestic violence. Over a five-year period, the share of people who experienced at least one form of domestic violence has not changed significantly since 2022. The phenomenon affects the sexes very unevenly: 5.4% of women report such experiences, compared with 2.2% of men. According to Baier, this gap shows up both in official statistics and in unreported cases, underlining the need for further measures to prevent violence against women. Among the different forms of domestic violence examined, only hate crimes in this context show a statistically significant increase compared with 2022.

It remains to be seen what public resources will actually be devoted to prevention, particularly to protect women, who remain the main victims of domestic violence, and whether the public's greater need for security will translate into a stronger police presence on the ground.