I was the victim of a home robbery a few years ago in Cleveland. Thieves hit multiple homes on my block in a few hours, TRASHED my house looking for valuables and stole about $1000 worth of stuff from my home (an easily identifiable bike, cash)

Cleveland PD showed up, shrugged their shoulders, gave me a police report for my home insurance claim (which covered nothing that was stolen) and said there was no chance the crime would be solved.

A few weeks later I had to contact the same CPD district office because someone I sold something to online threatened me with physical violence and showed up at my house at 11 PM to "settle the matter." I went to the police station and was again told directly by the police there was nothing they could do, even though the man was parked outside of my home at the time, waiting for me to engage.

Absolutely worthless institution.

Police aren't magic. Your anecdotal experience is unfortunate but it doesn't make them a "worthless institution". Property crime is very minor, and the resources it would take to systematically track down the thieves in your example is far more than the damages caused and would interfere with other investigations in far more serious crimes.

Property crime is not minor, it's what the common people paying taxes actually expect law enforcement to deal with. Like, being able to leave your bike and find it where you left it, you know

People expect law enforcement to deal with everything, especially if it personally affects them.

The point is that property crime is still minor in comparison to how serious a crime is, for example homicide. It also means that resources will be less available as a result.

Cynical view. I called the police for a theft, they found the guy and brought my goods back within 24 hours. I expressed amazement and they said "yeah this is our job we are pretty good at it."

Maybe depends on where you live. GP's experience rings true after living in SF for a decade. I've had a friend get punched in broad daylight by a homeless person, black eye and everything, and the cops responded "what do you want me to do?" Also know many startups with offices broken into, laptops stolen. Cops show up 4 hours later and say they probably won't recover the goods. When asked if camera footage would have helped, the answer is no - but you can stick up some fake ones as a deterrent.

So what do you want them to do? Interview every homeless person to find the culprit? What's the practical solution using reasonable resources?

Also most of the problems are due to a lack of prosecution (in the SF area). Police can't do much if criminals just get immediately released without consequence.

We could both give a description of the person, location where it happened, and there were many witnesses. Typical stuff cops ask on TV. I'm not face blind to homeless people.

TV isn't anything like real life. Was there photo or video surveillance? If not, how good was the description? Was the perpetrator still near the location? How many people do you need to search to find a match? How many cops and how much time do you expect to be assigned to this?

Like I said, even if the police do find and arrest this person, it's still up to the courts to prosecute. It's a lot of work between the court proceedings with testimonies and evaluations to get a conviction. Some regions like California are very reluctant to bring charges and just release them instead, which is why police will avoid dealing with the matter in the first place.

I am not sure what you are arguing for. We should not have asked a police for help because we should have known that their job is hard to do efficiently and their workplace contains office politics?

That's their problem, not mine. As far as I'm concerned, police should do what they say they do on the tin. What happened was my friend got punched in the face and what we wanted was for the police to at least make it appear like they were interested in reducing the ambient amount of face punchings in their jurisdiction.

I'm arguing against the many comments in this thread that called the police a "worthless institution" because of some anecdotes, which is analogous to saying "sql is slow" because you particular query is slow; instead both subjects require thought about realistic scenarios and expectations to understand why things are the way they are.

> "appear like they were interested"

They're interested but they're not there to appease. As I already said several times before, police need laws and courts to back them up or their work is ineffective. You should contact your maylor and local DA about why that jurisdiction has so many face punchings by the homeless in the first place.

Buddy got his bike stolen. Granted, it was a very nice bike. Cops called 3 months later to say they found it for him. Didn't even arrest the kid riding it, because it was obvious he "inherited" it, and he didn't give them a hassle turning it over. Most of them are pretty good at their jobs. IME, barely most, but most nonetheless.

Maybe it is regional? Where do you live that the police do a good job?

You have the most uncommon outcome. Count yourself lucky.

I got my laptop back after a burglary in Newark. I had to do all the detective work, which was easy enough with Orbicule Undercover, but I did get it back.

I got mugged and the police had the people who did it, and my property, back less than 10 minutes after I called it in. Chicago, fwiw.