You need a District Attorney willing to actively go after these kinds of suspects. In my experience the police don't really do anything about thefts unless they happen to catch the perpetrator in the act. My family had our car stolen from our driveway and they did virtually nothing to try and recover it. In fact, the only reason why we got it back was because the tweaker who stole it managed to park it in a reserved stall on private property and it was towed. The police said they swept the car for evidence, but we found multiple prescription bottles with the suspect's name on it in easy to reach places. The cops obviously missed this and refused to accept it as evidence. We did a LexisNexus search of the name on the bottle and lo-and-behold, multiple priors for armed robbery and auto theft. No charges were ever filed against the person.
So I have virtually no faith in security cameras. They do their jobs, but the DA certainly doesn't.
I don’t necessarily disagree with you about the DA, but it seems like in your specific case the problem is more that the police themselves are acting indifferently.
CCTV in an age of universal and accepted mask-wearing is pretty ineffective. I have video of people breaking into my business and stealing five figures worth of goods a few years back with specific identification of them, forwarded to the police, who have done nothing with it. Non-violent crimes (specifically property damage or theft) just aren't prosecuted, especially on the west coast.
So I have virtually no faith in security cameras. They do their jobs, but the DA certainly doesn't.