Low-level Punishment in Switzerland

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.