With prisons overflowing, Switzerland mulls plan to export inmates to France, Germany

BERLIN – Little Switzerland has too many criminals and too few prisons.

Now the Justice Ministry is reportedly considering a proposal to export convicts to neighboring France and Germany.

Swiss prisons chief Thomas Freytag told public broadcaster SRF in a program aired late Friday that the country's correctional facilities are at more than 100 percent capacity.

Prisons in the French-speaking cantons (states) of western Switzerland are said to be particularly overcrowded.

It's unclear when the Justice Ministry would decide on the plan, and whether France or Germany would be prepared to let Swiss inmates do their time there.

In recent years Switzerland has tightened its immigration rules for foreigners from the surrounding European Union, causing considerable political friction with its neighbors.