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Homicide in Switzerland

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Handbook of European Homicide Research

Abstract

The Swiss chapter on homicide is based on the Swiss Homicide Database (SHD), a nationwide database including premeditated homicidal events in Switzerland between 1980 and 2004. Data are based on autopsy registries from legal medicine institutes and completed by police and court files. The database constitutes a full sample of homicide events in Switzerland for the years 1991–2004, and a partial sample for the years 1980–1990. Information on offender and victim characteristics, circumstances of the homicide as well as legal consequences of the offence are included. Homicide in Switzerland mainly occurs within sentimental partnerships or the family, followed by disputes between friends or acquaintances. Although homicide rates in Switzerland are relatively low in comparison with other European countries, cases of homicide followed by suicide are unusually frequent. Firearms are the modal weapon used in homicide. Swiss rates of gun homicide are among the highest in Europe. The high prevalence of firearm-related casualties is largely due to wide-spread gun availability in Switzerland. As the Swiss military system requires every male Swiss citizen to serve in the militia and to keep his Army equipment at home, prevalence of gun ownership is higher in Switzerland than in other European countries.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Foreign nationality is defined as not being of Swiss nationality.

  2. 2.

       The fist project included homicides in the cantons of Vaud, Neuchâtel, Valais, and Fribourg (Villettaz et al., 2003).

  3. 3.

     This is especially true for cases where no trial had been held yet. Furthermore, for cases with unknown offenders, the intent of the offender was determined on the base of presently known circumstances.

  4. 4.

     These theses are limited to the French part of Switzerland because they are based on the first homicide database project in four french-speaking cantons. For more information about this database, see Villettaz et al. (2003).

  5. 5.

     There are 30 cases with known offenders which can be classified as “borderline” intentional.

  6. 6.

     For the notion of cooffending in Swiss Criminal Law, see Trechsel & Killias (2004).

  7. 7.

     Because of the small size of Switzerland and the relatively low number of homicide cases per year, rates of regional homicide distribution would not be very relevant; therefore, the analysis is based on national homicide cases only, without disaggregation into regional subgroups.

  8. 8.

    The cantons of St. Gallen and Appenzell AR were the first cantons to introduce mandatory expulsion from the common dwelling in 2003. The legal foundation of this policy is defined in section 43 to 43quinquies of the law for the maintenance of public order of the canton of St.Gallen as well as in the section 17 of the law for the maintenance of public order of the canton of Appenzell AR.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Criminology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Nora Markwalder & Martin Killias

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  1. Nora Markwalder
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  2. Martin Killias
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Correspondence to Nora Markwalder .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. , Dept. of Criminal Law and Criminology, Leiden University, Steenschuur 25, Leiden, 2311 ES, Netherlands

    Marieke C. A. Liem

  2. , Department of Criminal Justice, Indiana University, Sycamore Hall 302, Bloomington, 47405, USA

    William Alex Pridemore

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Markwalder, N., Killias, M. (2012). Homicide in Switzerland. In: Liem, M., Pridemore, W. (eds) Handbook of European Homicide Research. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-0466-8_22

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