Visiting Switzerland

As in the German speaking cantons of Switzerland, the French area known as ‘Romandy’ has witnessed substantial overcrowding in its prisons. The Champ-Dollon prison outside Geneva, which was an ‘academy’ style prison the 80’s heyday of flowing money and low crime, used to sport coiffure service and fitness and library facilities for its relatively small client population. Those days have long gone and Champ-Dollon, like other Swiss prisons, is overcrowded, with often a half dozen prisoners to a cell. It can take 2 months to see a prison dentist or doctor, and the prisons now house violent criminals from Eastern Europe or Africa. Where once upon a time, perhaps only 20 years ago, it was not unheard of for the poor or jobless to commit crimes with the sole objective of being put into prison—Swiss prisons are no longer the 5 star establishments they used to be.

Nonetheless, they do constitute an interesting stop on any tourist’s holiday circuit and Switzerland has just inaugurated a new one at La Brenaz, partly to take some of the pressure off Champ-Dollon, which is pushing 500 inmates for a prison designed for 250.

La Brenaz has been designed with painterly touches – the common areas are colored in yellow, the cells are white. The Brenaz prison gives an impression of cleanliness and light. Well, they haven’t put the prisoners in there yet….

As of next week, however, prisoners will be placed there. La Brenaz has been built to house up to 68 prisoners.

While visitors can tour the institution, in order to be admitted to La Brenaz, the would-be prisoner must have been sentenced to at most 3 years confinement. The department of sentencing (SAPEM – Service Application des Peines et Mesures) makes decisions based on their assessment of the dangerousness of the prisoner and the amount of time remaining to be served. So the La Brenaz will not accommodate the most serious cases. The prison contains no solitary confinement cells and is probably much less difficult to escape from than the maximum security prison at Orbe, or Brenaz’s sister prison Champ-Dollon. Prison officials were unwilling to comment on this last.

In any case, the prison lifestyle of Brenaz is certainly not attributed to a dangerous prisoner population. At Brenaz, during half a day, the prisoners will work in ateliers such as maintenance, bakery, bracelet assembly, etc. (Some of these bracelets, by the way, go on sale in the local department stores.)

In a wonderful poetic twist to psychology of incarceration, the prisoners at Brenaz are allowed to take the key to their cells and walk throughout the building. There are common areas and rooms where one can meet with a nurse, a social assistant, or a psychologist. There is also a sports center. Visits are allowed once per week and smoking is not allowed in the prison cells. Portable telephones are not allowed either. A public telephone is at the disposal of inmates.

Prison cells at La Brenaz are 12 square meters, the same as those at Champ Dollon – except that those at Brenaz are supposed to have one occupant, rather than the current habitual 5 or 6 guys dudes stuffed in the cells at Champ-Dollon. The cells have a bathroom, an dresser, a bed, a large wooden table under the window, a refridgerator and a flat screen TV.

Despite the relative luxury at La Brenaz, the cost of housing a prisoner there is CHF 200/day, versus CHF 260/day at Champ-Dollon, due to the fact that the personnel are much more numerous at the higher security Champ-Dollon (240) than at La Brenaz (27).

The new prison at La Brenaz took roughly one year to build and cost CHF 18,420,000
Further details on the facility or information on how to arrange a tour can be obtained from: M. Constantin Franziskakis, Prison Warden, DI, tél. +41 (79) 416 37 07; or M. Juan Boada, adjoint de direction, Building Manager, DCTI, tél. +41 (22) 327 48 21.