A few times the lie has risen that crime is much less in muslim countries than in western ones.

This article refutes that to a large degree.

Quote:



http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25502229-12377,00.html

Iran...

The state of the prisons in Iran is a challenge in itself, though it is linked to some of the problems of the justice system. As have been presented through Table 1, the number of those jailed for drug-related crimes (dealers and addicts) from 1979 to 2003 was 2,556,143 individuals, an average of 106,509 per annum. From 1989 to 2003, an annual average of 130803 drug-related crimes has been committed.

In 2004-05, there were 136,427 prisoners (convicts) under the administration of the prisons authority; an unknown number of detainees under temporary arrest (estimate of 210,000) waiting for their court verdicts as well as unknown numbers of prisoners in the jails of various security organizations not under auspices of the Iran Prison Organizations. The known figure represents 490 prisoners per 100,000 of the population, which places the country among the six countries of the world with the highest incarceration rates. Over 95 percent of prisoners are men, which mean that prisoners compose about 1 percent of the male population. The very large number of accused detained in prison awaiting trials, which creates problems for the rights of the accused, contributes to the overcrowding of the prisons and is costly for the state

One major problem faced by the administration of justice in Iran is the overloading of courts with cases. Figures concerning the disaggregated cases that are annually cleared at the public, criminal and courts of Appeal show the extensive growth of courts' backlogs. From 2000 - 2004, an enormous backlog of 6,000,000 were pending at the courts thus creating a serious bottleneck for the administration of justice in Iran. This in turn caused the procrastination of the proceedings, some of which dragging for months and years, entangling those citizens who referred to the courts.

Is anyone surprised that the same people who come to our countries and commit crimes also commit crimes in their own countries?  The difference is that in their own countries they're perhaps more realistic and severely punish criminals.