how would criminal activity be dealt with in a stateless society?

[tannenj]

sorry if this seems noobish. this is something i've been thinking about recently and i can't really find a good answer in past threads.

i have a libertarian background. i suspect i'm like a lot of 2+2ers in that i find things like welfare, social security, a non-isolationist military strategy, etc. to be offensive. i'm also an atheist and think the government should be completely uninvolved in citizens' lives in a social sense (read: if someone wants to get an abortion or play online poker, the government should [censored] off). this peeves the hell out of me. basically, i support a very minimal government with very minimal taxes.

this stance is extreme compared to the average person's. with that said, i've browsed this forum a bit and i see that a bunch of posters think government should be totally abolished; in comparison to this, my politics stance seems mild.

so, i've been giving some thought to anarchism and reading a bunch of threads. it seems idealistic to me because without at least a minimal form of government, how would we prevent chaos?

i posed this question to nielsio, who i believe is banned from this forum. he responded with several links:

1, 2, 3

the author discusses dros (dispute resolution organizations), to my understanding, independent insurance companies that put some kind of mark on the credit of offenders that will make it difficult/impossible for offenders to get jobs, purchase property, etc.

but this doesn't seem good enough. it seems that many nutjobs wouldn't care less about dros and that this system would be conducive to nutjobs running wild and society becoming chaotic. to me, the dro stuff seems flimsy.

would anarchists say that this point is pessimistic and doesn't give enough credit to human beings?

i understand that these thoughts are probably elementary. all comments welcome.