[vorpalhex]

Did you get back your items? Was the person arrested and charged appropriately?

My neighbors have posted many reasonably clear, useful images of break-ins and shared them with the police. It has done no actual good - no items recovered, no perpetrators dissuaded.

[factotum]

Nothing was stolen, but if the person keeps doing it and is caught, that's just more evidence against them. Things like this often play out over a long period of time. I'd rather work towards actively deterring people than sit here and think up infinite paranoid scenarios.

[vorpalhex]

I once caught dashcam footage of a hit and run. Clearly see the license plate, the vehicle occupant - easy case closed stuff. Called the local non-emergency number for the police station and they wouldn't even give me a place to send the footage, much less do anything about the fleeing driver. Had I been smarter, I would have given it to the insurance company of the car that had been hit - but lesson learned for next time.

Footage does nothing to deter people and it has no consequences. It can only be used against the interest of common people - because stopping crime does not lead to meaningful profit. Selling security devices to folks, charging per the hour for security checkpoints, selling x-ray machines, well, that's very profitable - but you can't do those things when nobody is concerned. Harvesting data, selling facial profiles - again, profitable, extremely so.

[ilikehurdles]

I've had a bike stolen from a closed off area surrounded by cameras and needing badges to enter. The police were called and didn't even bother with pulling footage, in fact no one did. I've heard almost a hundred stories about dashcams capturing the plates of at-fault drivers in accidents and nothing coming of it.

[CamperBob2]

This is a problem with shitty police departments, not cameras.