What society has had the lowest/highest crime rate in history?

Gensfre: What society has had the lowest/highest crime rate in history?
I’m doing a research paper in school, and I decided that my thesis would be what aspects of law and order should be harshened, and why. I tried answering this question on google, but the only results that come up are current, I want to know what societies have had the highest and lowest crime rates in history.

Answers and Views:

Answer by Cool Rick
Antarctica

Answer by Brieg Dafydd
I expect the further in history you go back, the more harsher the punishments would be. But, back in the olden days, it wasn’t as easy to keep check on who was obeying the law and who was not. More crime was commited in the olden days, just no-one knew about it

Answer by trai
No way to know. Statics on crime and criminal records were not kept by many societies. Any information recorded by many has been lost.

Probably the biggest obstacle, though, is the evolution of societies and differences in them in general, greatly changing and varying the definition of crime.

For example, being a Christian in certain Roman Empire cities was a crime punishable by death. A reasonable modern American would not consider such a thing criminal. Most cultures have owned slaves, and considered chaining and beating them normal and reasonable. Most cultures now consider those very serious crimes.

Even in modern times, globally, the definition of criminal is wide. In certain areas of the world, one cannot commit the crime of rape against one’s spouse, for example, even if she’s beaten unconscious. In some areas there are no controlled substance laws, whereas the US incarcerates the most offenders on these types of charges.

You can make a direct comparison of certain aspects, but there’s no way you could reasonably compare in such broad terms.