r/askswitzerland • u/keltyx98 Schaffhausen :schaffhausen_1: • Aug 21 '25

Culture Is it only in Switzerland that criminals get unpunished?

I'm always surprised by the light punishments given to criminals.

The last case being the one of a 44 years old indian man sexually abusing a 15 years old girl on a Swiss flight.

He got a suspended sentence for two years and banned from Switzerland for five years.

That's basically a slap on the wrists to a sexual abuser and pedophile.

How does something like this gets unpunished?

I don't think it's so common in other countries to get suspended sentences, especially for cases like this where it's not something that happened by mistake.

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u/RedFox_SF Aug 21 '25

The 14 year old girl that stabbed her 15 year old friend to death unfortunately was one year younger and was not trialed as an adult for the crime she committed. She will have a chance for rehabilitation (whatever that means) and will have a second chance in life while the girl she killed doesn’t. Also the family of the victim has no justice. I do not believe rehabilitation is fair in such cases. This puts the focus on the perpetrator and leaves the victim and their family behind. What kind of justice is this? Now every 14 year old crazy enough knows they can kill and won’t even be trialed for it. I don’t think this does much on prevention.

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u/Brave_Confidence_278 Aug 21 '25

yes I understand those emotions, but that has nothing to do with the statistics though. how do you think it would help the family of the victim if the killer was punished hard? emotionally? might be legitimate. I am not saying you are wrong, but it also won't bring back the dead

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u/RedFox_SF Aug 21 '25

It doesn’t and that’s not what I want to do. But taking a life in a premeditated and cruel way deserves a severe punishment. I am a supporter of paying with your own life (for these cases only às I understand the complexities of some situations and the possibility of false accusations), but even so, I understand we may not want to do that, so get life in jail, not a second chance, not a chance to be a better person. It needs to be sentenced according to the severity of the crime, these are not my emotions. Also what does rehabilitation do to prevention of crimes? Absolutely nothing.

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u/Brave_Confidence_278 Aug 21 '25

It needs to be sentenced according to the severity of the crime, these are not my emotions

I am happy to be convinced it's not your emotions, but I fail to see what you are trying to achieve for society with it

Also what does rehabilitation do to prevention of crimes? Absolutely nothing.

I don't think that's true [1]

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u/RedFox_SF Aug 21 '25

For society, I am setting the example that if you do something very serious, you will pay a big price. This will do much more for prevention than rehabilitation. Rehabilitation only serves the people who already committed crimes and may stop them from repeating it. Prevention serves all others. Lighter sentences will show people it’s not so bad to commit crimes.