Police in Vaud and Geneva join forces to combat cross-border theft
Number of assaults in Geneva fell in 2011
Violent crimes fell in Geneva in 2011: orange shows simple injuries and yellow serious plus homicides (Source: Geneva Police / OFS statistics)
GENEVA / LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Geneva tops the Swiss list for a 2011 rise in property crimes, including break-ins and theft, but Lausanne, Basel, Bern and Zurich also saw increases last year that outpaced population growth and were well above the national average of 71 per 1,000 inhabitants.
Geneva’s violent crimes, including all degrees and forms of assault, fell in 2011, however; one exception was the increase from 4 (2008) to 15 knife attacks, in four years.
Urban border regions in western Switzerland in particular have seen cross-border burglary increases and Tuesday the cantonal ministers in charge of police for Geneva and Vaud announced a joint task force to step up coordination with French police to tackle the problem.
They are also calling for tougher penalties against repeat offenders and note that the “Lake Geneva region appears to have become a privileged target for robbers.”
Two features of the cross-border crime that are worrying police in Geneva, reports swissinfo, are the number of under-age Balkans working in theft in a stretch from Milan to Paris and a shift from street crime to burglaries by a group of about 400 North Africans living illegally in Geneva.
Burglaries in Geneva rose 29 percent in 2011, break-ins 19 percent and vehicle theft 9 percent
The new European Sourcebook of Crime and Criminal Justice Statistics 2010 indicates that Switzerland has one of the highest rates of criminal problems linked to migration, but the most recent figures are five years old, covering 2003-2007, and European reporting standards differ. The UK, for example, records ethnic background rather than nationality for criminals arrested, while Switzerland, which has one of Europe’s highest rates of resident foreigners, lists nationality.
Geneva and Basel are the only two cantons with 2011 crime rates higher than 100 per 1,000: 159 for Geneva and 119 for Basel (source: Swiss Federal Statistical Office)
Crime statistics for Switzerland for 2011 were released Monday by the Federal Statistical Office in Neuchatel, and include cantonal details.
Cantonal police have been releasing highway and accident statistics in the past few days.
Overall, numbers show a mixed safety picture, with property crimes up, more foreigners entering and re-entering the country illegally and who are often linked to other crimes.
Nationwide, violent crimes are down by 7 percent and in the Lake Geneva region there were fewer road accidents.
Geneva was the subject of much media hype in 2011 about personal safety and crime but the statistics don’t bear out complaints that the city is unsafe, physically, although residents and visitors would do well to watch their cars, motorbikes and bags, with theft on the rise.
Vaud saw its overall crime rate jump 18.6 percent, with a 14 percent increase in break-ins and 7 percent increase in robberies. Country-wide the rate of break-ins rose 16 percent. Car theft was up by 4 percent.
A concern in Vaud is the “massive presence of Bulgarian and Romanian prostitutes, implying a potential problem with human trafficking,” the canton notes in a press release. Police closed down immediately 7 of the more than 700 massage parlours they checked during the year.
Swiss producer and import prices drop - View of the Basel port by Martin Ruetschi/Photopress
NEUCHATEL, SWITZERLAND – The Swiss producer and import prices fell sharply in August 2011 says a report published 14 September by the Federal Statistics Office, FSO.
The index for August slid 1.2% from the previous month as a result of a weak economy worldwide, lower prices for paper, oil, gas and chemical products, and the strengthening of the Swiss franc.
The current index is set at 98.5 points.
Prices for domestic products declined 0.8%, import prices fell 2%.
Compared to August 2010, the price index of the total supply of domestic and imported products decreased by 1.9%.
Following the release of the data, the Swiss franc extended losses against the US dollar gaining 0.39% to trade at 0.8838.
Neuchatel, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Swiss unemployment in the second quarter of 2009 jumped from 3.4 percent to 4.1 percent compared to the same period last year, according to provisional figures released by the Federal Statistical Office (FSO). Altogether there were 182,000 unemployed people in Switzerland at the end of June 2009. People aged 25-39 years were hardest hit: their rate of unemployment increased by 1.6 percentage points in a year to 4.7 percent, while the rate for those with only a secondary school education increased 1.3 percentage points to 7.4 percent.
By international comparison, the Swiss unemployment rate is still low, the study points out. European Union unemployment increased from 6.8 percent last year to 8.8 percent in the second quarter of 2009.
Bern, Switzerland (TSR, Fre) – Real salaries inched up in 2006 by 0.1%. While the increase shows near-stagnation in purchasing power for the Swiss, it is a turnaround: the first increase in the rate of growth since 2001. The rate of growth of real salaries in 2005 was slightly negative, -0.2%. The figures are part of the annual salary statistics released by the Federal Statistical Office (OFS) in Bern Monday.
The nominal salary index shows a 2.1% increase, but with the cost of living up 1.1% real salaries rose only slightly. The real salary figure is a key to consumer spending power, but the annual figures published by the OFS ultimately serve as the basis for salary negotiations for collective contracts in Switzerland every autumn.
