Crime Rates: Australia vs U.S.

My run in with the LAPD, so to speak, made me wonder about crime rates. I've always assumed crime rates in the U.S. would be higher than Australia. What I found out really surprised me.  The following statistics are based on comparisons of crime in OECD countries.  I've narrowed it down to OECD countries as they would be more likely to have reliable national statistics agencies. See http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/statistics/crime.html.  

Crime	OECD Country	Police Recorded Cases Per 100,000 population
Intentional Homicide	Mexico (ranked 1st)	18.1
	Australia	1.2
	U.S. (3rd)	5.0
Rape	Australia (ranked 1st)	91.9
	U.S. (4th)	28.6
Robbery	Belgium (ranked 1st)	1762
	Australia	18
	U.S.	133
Assault	Scotland (ranked 1st)	1487
	Australia	327
	U.S.	262
Burglary	Denmark (ranked 1st)	1939
	Australia	1017
	U.S.	715
Vehicle Theft	New Zealand (ranked 1st)	466
	Australia	272
	U.S.	258

Equally interesting is that while the U.S. has the highest ratio of sentenced incarcerated persons per persons convicted (otherwise called the punitivity ratio) at 1.47, Australia ranks 21st out of 32 countries with a punitivity ratio of .068.  Finland ranks last with a ratio of .015. I guess the obvious question is how do crime rates correlate with punitivity ratio. Then again, correlation does not mean causation and as with most things, factors causing high crime rates are bound to be multiple and complex.