Even for murders, this is the case. The US significantly underperforms other developed countries in the "clearance" rate for murder cases, i.e. the number of murder cases resulting in at least one arrest. In 2020 the clearance rate reached a record low of slightly less than 50% nationally, and much worse in some cities.

https://www.npr.org/2023/04/29/1172775448/people-murder-unso...

Not a fan of the police from either a performance or ethics standpoint, but it's harder to make a case in the USA. There are a ton of cases where there's no arrest, despite some evidence.

My home was straight up robbed while I slept three years ago. The convenience store on the corner has cameras facing our property that the suspects walked directly beneath. Despite having been told this, the "detectives" never followed up to see if they could get the footage.

I get it, but it doesn't make it any less disappointing. And around here, a combination of defund the police and other factors have reduced the size of the police force.

Patrols are down 40% since 2020. Hit and runs and other traffic incidents are up. None of the alternate solutions to law enforcement intervention have been implemented so we're just stuck with crime increases. Like a lot of places, we're dealing with an epidemic of people stealing cars for the lulz or using the cars to commit more serious crimes.

I know there are plans to fix some of these issues and I hope our local government can stop arguing about how to do it and start getting stuff done.

100% of cases I'm aware of the police acting like someone's being ridiculous for thinking they'd bother to even run some plates captured in a video of a crime predate "defund", which I'm actually tepidly in favor of, since I'm pretty sure we could come up with programs to issue traffic tickets and hassle the homeless for a lot less than what we pay for the police. I've never once known them to lift a finger in the case of an actual crime, regardless of how much evidence you can hand them on a platter.

And I'm not in one of those supposedly-hellhole liberal cities that people claim have legalized all crime or whatever. Direct and second-hand experience with this stuff dates back to the 80s, for me. Zero times have I known the cops to help when a crime's been committed, beyond issuing a report for insurance (and sometimes charging money for that "service") and possibly snooping around to see if they can charge the person reporting the crime with something (hey, they're already right there, so that's a much easier arrest to make!)