In the real world as opposed to in an ideal world.
The unfortunate fact is that police have more pressing issues to deal with than petty theft, no-one is going to be taking more than a second glance at any CCTV footage, and you're certainly not going to see it.
Also with respect to 'privacy warriors' you have to way up the weights of the possible pros and cons. In the best case scenario you retrieve a piece of low value electronic equipment. Whoop-de-do. In the worst case, violent ex-husband finds the whereabouts of his ex-wife and assaults her, or worse.
> The unfortunate fact is that police have more pressing issues to deal with than petty theft …
This is not strictly true. Police forces have divisions and staff dedicated to all types crime and petty theft is no exception. They might be understaffed compared to the workload but it's not necessarily true they have more pressing issues to deal with. Someone on the bulglary team is supposed to work on bulglaries, not, say for instance, murder or vice or whatnot.
Ok yeah, that's probably true. But what I imagine the burglary team would do is collect evidence of patterns of thefts, and then do work to prevent thefts where there is the highest number of incidents. This might involve investigating and stopping a particular gang, or it might be as simple as putting up signs telling people to be careful of bag snatchers.
What they are not going to do is go all CSI Miami to retrive a Kindle.
The unfortunate fact is that police have more pressing issues to deal with than petty theft, no-one is going to be taking more than a second glance at any CCTV footage, and you're certainly not going to see it.
Also with respect to 'privacy warriors' you have to way up the weights of the possible pros and cons. In the best case scenario you retrieve a piece of low value electronic equipment. Whoop-de-do. In the worst case, violent ex-husband finds the whereabouts of his ex-wife and assaults her, or worse.