Research - 15.10.2026 - 08:00
More and more people in Switzerland are experiencing crime. This was revealed by the Crime Survey 2025. For almost all offences examined, more respondents reported having been victims than in the last survey in 2022. The rise is particularly marked in the case of fraud: within a year, 15.9 per cent of respondents had been affected, compared with 8.4 per cent in 2022.
During this time, reporting rates have remained virtually unchanged. “This means that the rise in reported crime is not primarily due to a greater willingness to report offences,” says Dirk Baier, co-project leader of the Crime Survey and professor of social work at the ZHAW. Sexual violence offences are an exception, with the 2025 Crime Survey showing no increase in the victimisation rate.
The sense of safety has also deteriorated since the last survey. 83.1 per cent of respondents feel fairly or very safe on their own in their neighbourhood after dark; in 2022, the figure was 87.6 per cent. At the same time, the proportion of people who were specifically afraid of becoming victims of a crime on the street in the past year has risen.
More respondents also consider the police presence in public spaces to be too low: 37.9 per cent compared with 28.9 per cent in 2022. Trust in the police, however, remains high. The researchers do not regard the decline in the sense of safety and fear of crime as dramatic overall. “We should take this trend seriously without over-dramatising it. Despite the decline in the sense of safety, the population continues to perceive Switzerland as a safe country,” says Nora Markwalder, co-project leader and professor at the University of St.Gallen.
A supplementary report examines violence in the domestic sphere. Overall, the proportion of people who have experienced at least one form of domestic violence within the past five years has not changed significantly compared with 2022.
Women continue to be affected significantly more often than men: 5.4 per cent of women and 2.2 per cent of men report such experiences. “The fact that women are affected by domestic violence significantly more often than men is evident not only in the official statistics but also in unreported cases,” says Baier. “The results therefore underline the importance of further preventive measures that combat violence against women.” Among the individual forms of violence examined, only hate crime in the domestic sphere shows a statistically significant increase compared with 2022.
For the 2025 Crime Survey, 13,499 people aged between 16 and 80 from across Switzerland were surveyed online.
The Crime Survey is a representative population survey on experiences of victimisation and perceptions of safety in Switzerland. It was conducted by ZHAW Social Work and the University of St.Gallen in collaboration with the Conference of Cantonal Police Commanders of Switzerland (KKPKS). Following the 2022 survey, the 2025 survey was conducted for the second time in largely the same format, thereby enabling a comparison over time.
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