The Penal Code and penalties for teenagers
The Penal Code and penalties for teenagers
"In Switzerland, can a teenager who commits an offence go to prison? Will they have a criminal record as an adult?"
Ken
There is a federal law governing the criminal status of minors, which provides for specific penalties applicable to young people aged between 10 and 18 if they are guilty of an act punishable under the Criminal Code or any other law.
This means that the behaviours that may constitute offences are the same for minors as for adults, since juvenile criminal law refers to the Criminal Code for the list of contraventions, misdemeanours and crimes prohibited by Swiss law.
It is in the area of sanctions that juvenile criminal law provides two specific types of regime: protective measures and penalties. Sanctions include supervision, outpatient treatment and placement. Penalties can take the form of personal benefits, fines or, in very serious cases, deprivation of liberty.
Placement may be with a private individual or in an educational establishment. It is not therefore a case of imprisonment but rather of removal from the family environment for educational purposes, a cardinal principle in cases involving minors. Deprivation of liberty, on the other hand, is only available to minors aged 15 or over and may not exceed 4 years. As for pre-trial detention, it should only be used in exceptional circumstances. Paradoxically, however, the Code of Criminal Procedure applicable to minors states that pre-trial detention is possible without specifying a minimum age.
Finally, with regard to the entry in the criminal record, a distinction must be made between what is mentioned in the extract from the criminal record intended for private individuals (the one you can request) and what is entered in the criminal record itself. Under article 369 of the Criminal Code, offences are removed from the criminal record in varying degrees depending on the sentence imposed, but after a maximum of ten years in the case of a minor. On the other hand, article 371 of the Criminal Code specifies that judgements concerning minors are not mentioned in the extract from the criminal record intended for private individuals. This allows adults who were convicted when they were minors to benefit from a "clean" criminal record.
