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If they see their face or some defining characteristics that help them identify the perpetrator, and that person is known, then obviously they’re going to try to bring that person in and prosecute. I keep hearing that most thefts are made by repeat offenders in the same area, so the evidence can build up, eventually leading to an arrest.

I didn’t say it would help in every case, it might even be a tiny proportion of cases, but court records show CCTV recordings are used as evidence, so it happens.

Is that number of crimes it helps solve worth the trade-off in personal freedoms? That’s where we are now.

> But if laptops arent worth investigating, they should make stealing one legal, or at the very least tell the public they cant be bothered with laptops.

That’s hyperbole and also a misreading of what I said.

The chance of recovering a laptop once stolen is close to zero. If the police attempt to track down the stolen item they will most likely not find it, it is literally a waste of their time. Best you can hope for is that they find a stash of them in future and can identify yours.

If they have a lead on who did it, they will focus on the culprit. Or they may choose to focus on prevention, if they think it will reduce the chances of it happening again. Or they may have nothing in which case they can do nothing.

Either way, if your laptop’s been nicked (as mine was) then you’ll get no catharsis, even if they catch the guy who did it. It sucks, but there isn’t a practical alternative.

The police cannot guarantee every crime get solved and it’s unreasonable to expect that. That is not the same as saying that they have no effect at all, that they don’t reduce the number of robberies that take place, or that you might as well make theft legal.