The answer to this question is actually rather complicated. Officially, the crime statistics for the GDR were approximately 10% of those of the FRG, a fact that the SED-controlled state media loved to trumpet, especially after it had become apparent that the FRG's economy had overtaken the planned economy of the GDR by a considerable margin. The regime was obviously interested in keeping these official statistics low for propaganda purposes, but as a whole, incidences of serious crime was significantly lower in the GDR than in its counterpart. Off-the record data obtained after 1989 has revealed that the state did underreport crime, but the crime rate hovered at between 30 and 50% of the FRG's. Using data from death certificates and other states sources, post-89 criminologists noted that between 1970-76, the GDR's crude homicide rate hovered between .5 per 100000 while the FRG's averaged between 1.3-1.5. Nonviolent crimes did go up in the final two decades of the GDR, but they still remained below that of the West. Naturally, different legal and policing practices makes it hard to draw direct comparisons, but crime was much less of a social problem in the GDR than the FRG.

Post-Wende criminologists have posited a number of reasons for this discrepancy. The extensive system of state surveillance likely played a role. The Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS)'s system of extensive informants and widespread knowledge of this network meant that crimes could be denounced. Although the MfS became increasingly bloated and its surveillance portfolio was subject to mission creep, the fear of an omnipresent surveillance state did act as a deterrent .Keep in mind, deterrence is near impossible to prove in this case, but the litany of Stasi jokes, the massive number of IMs, the state's harsh rhetoric towards those who violated the social order were things average GDR citizens were aware of. As a whole, the MfS was only tangentially involved in the enforcement of criminal law. It was more concerned with crimes against the state and political subversion. But the MfS was only one lever of observation and control the SED maintained. The state encouraged the development of various neighborhood associations, among whose duties included ensuring vehicles and buildings were locked and other anti-crime measures enacted. Workplace brigades were also concerned with issues of public order and involved themselves with incidents outside the shopfloor if the activities of its members could somehow boomerang around and reflect badly upon the brigade.

Pace political scientists like Peter Sperlich who contend that the extensive surveillance lay behind much of the low crime rates, the GDR's extensive social welfare program and mass employment very likely played a role in this phenomena. Although the GDR could not provide its citizenry with enough consumer goods or drastically improve their quality of life, it did keep the bulk of the population in an equalized level of near-squalor. The state's provisions for health care, child care, and mass employment remained functional throughout the regime's life. The increasing failures of the planned economy, which were apparent from the late 1970s onward, did contribute to a rise in youth hooliganism and the rise of various youth-related misdemeanors, the state provided for most of the GDR's citizenry, albeit quite imperfectly and with a great deal of corruption and perks to SED loyalists. What this meant was that there was less material causes available that encouraged criminality.

While discerning the exact crime rates for the GDR are akin to nailing jelly to the wall, it is clear that crime rates in the former GDR drastically increased after reunification. The homicide rate in the former GDR climbed to 4.5 per 100000 between 1990-95, or twice the average for the West. Gang violence also increased in this period; one of the main priorities for the MfS was to curb skinheadism and the disappearance of the MfS eliminated this enforcement mechanism available to the authorities. Of course, gang violence also dovetailed with the economic malaise of the Eastern territories. The crime rate for these regions have been higher than the rest of the country, although there have been variations in the Länder.

This less than glamorous aspect of reunification has meant that the lack of crime has played an important component of Ostalgie. Even veterans of the MfS, who are ostracized in today's Germany, often justify their activities as part of maintaining a law and order now absent. But such Ostalgie ignores the significant social costs that undergird the low crime statistics. While many non-violent offenses got shunted off to social courts instead of the criminal courts, these courts often tried to coerce the accused to conform to society with the often unspoken threat of being remanded to the more punitive criminal system. SED cronyism often meant that the law was also imperfectly applied and the MfS, as the Party's "sword and shield" insulated these elite. So while the GDR was arguably "safer" before reunification, such safety came at an enormous price.

Sources

Clark, David E., and Manfred Wildner. "Violence and fear of violence in East and West Germany." Social science & medicine 51, no. 3 (2000): 373-379.

Kury, Helmut, Theodore N. Ferdinand, and Joachim Obergfell-Fuchs. "Does severe punishment mean less criminality?." International Criminal Justice Review 13, no. 1 (2003): 110-148.

Liem, Marieke C. A., and William Alex Pridemore. Handbook of European Homicide Research: Patterns, Explanations, and Country Studies. New York, NY: Springer, 2012.

Sperlich, Peter W. The East German Social Courts: Law and Popular Justice in a Marxist-Leninist Society. Westport, Conn. [u.a.]: Praeger, 2007.