In France, Prisons Filled With Muslims

[Mugu]

By Molly Moore, Washington Post Foreign Service

snip

This prison is majority Muslim -- as is virtually every house of incarceration in France. About 60 to 70 percent of all inmates in the country's prison system are Muslim, according to Muslim leaders, sociologists and researchers, though Muslims make up only about 12 percent of the country's population.

On a continent where immigrants and the children of immigrants are disproportionately represented in almost every prison system, the French figures are the most marked, according to researchers, criminologists and Muslim leaders.

"The high percentage of Muslims in prisons is a direct consequence of the failure of the integration of minorities in France," said Moussa Khedimellah, a sociologist who has spent several years conducting research on Muslims in the French penal system.

In Britain, 11 percent of prisoners are Muslim in contrast to about 3 percent of all inhabitants, according to the Justice Ministry. Research by the Open Society Institute, an advocacy organization, shows that in the Netherlands 20 percent of adult prisoners and 26 percent of all juvenile offenders are Muslim; the country is about 5.5 percent Muslim. In Belgium, Muslims from Morocco and Turkey make up at least 16 percent of the prison population, compared with 2 percent of the general populace, the research found.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/28/AR2008042802560_pf.html">Complete article

[EmperorHasNoClothes]

1. Muslim: The New Black.

[uppityperson]

2. k&r for Muslims in France.

France had Algeria as a colony, now the fundies don't want those former colonists to be able to live in their country. It's pretty sad.