Interviews with judges and prosecutors in Germany suggest the urgent need to rethink the punishment of low-level cases in Germany. About 500,000 low-level cases are fined in Germany per year. Courts prioritize efficiency in calculating fines, with the result that fines are often too high for people to pay. The system punishes a high volume of cases connected to poverty or other social issues that could be solved with non-punitive sanctions. Taken together, the system generates significant harm and alternative social policies must be considered.

In Lacatus v. Switzerland, the European Court of Human Rights held that a Swiss law punishing begging with high fines and prison violated a person’s right to dignity because it criminalized poverty. In this briefing, we find that the punishment of poverty detailed in Lacatus is not an anomaly: Switzerland’s courts disparately sentence people with lower incomes, racialized people, and migrants. People charged face serious consequences, including prison.