The public looks to the criminal justice system with the expectation that it will solve most of its problems. This is a problem.

The government is incapable of seeing that even a majority of reported crimes result in some type of punishment. In the United States, for instance, 12 million crimes are reported annually to the police, while roughly 23 million crimes are committed (1), and only 11% of reported crimes result in conviction. The figure of unreported crime is a dubious figure, actually referred to by criminologists and the like as the "dark figure of crime," since these statistics, for ethical and practical reasons, cannot be determined with any sort of accuracy.

Government's scale, at its core, is exceedingly simple. The more money the government has, the more resources it has at its disposal. The efficacy of the organization of the government can change this, but the fact remains that a government's ability is no greater than what its citizens grant it. This is assuming that we are to view government solely as a contract between citizens and a small subset of them who've, in effect, 'offered' to provide them with resources and services that the private market cannot supply - although the relationship, in reality, is far from consensual. Coercion is the most important factor for a government, in terms of its law enforcement ability: unless the government is able to reliably receive 'compensation' or support from the large majority of citizens, then it will not be able to function as a policing body. It will wither and fall away, only in a moment to give rise to another.

All this being said, it is impossible for all crimes to be solved, as even if taxes were placed as the entirety of one's income, in effect creating a communist state, the resources still do not exist to solve any crimes which have been meticulously planned. Although corruption is most commonplace in so-called developing nations, it is a problem in any country where it remains a possibility, and this further detracts from the resources the government has at its disposal.

Thus we are reduced to making a compromise. We may only investigate crimes and pursue further legal action as is allowed within the forged constraints of our legal system.

The results of this are obviously widely variable.

It's adequate to examine the legal system of most nations in terms of the protections that are granted to individuals. In some nations, it could be said that since the rights of the individual are essentially neglected, so the legal system must be measured in terms of how many individuals are targeted by it, yet it's a truism that these governments are the radical and generally dangerous exception to the norm.

That being said, the rights of the defendant don't change too dramatically over most countries. It's usually understood now among fully industrialized civilizations, at the very least, that the target of criminal investigation should have the right to an impartial examination of the case and should not be exploited as the result of government malfeasance; moreover, the proclaimed civil rights of the defendant must not be denied, lest either the police suffer consequences or the case be thrown out. This has obvious consequences on the ability of the government to see a case through to imprisonment on a large number of reported crimes, although it is generally portrayed as necessary.

If the rate of convictions per crime internationally (2) is examined over the past 60 years, there's a rather cartoonish graph as all of the rates for even the most successfully prosecutorial (or overly litigious) countries nearly halve to below 15 percent. Moreover, the fact that police will receive the most resources for the most publicized cases means that they will likely expend the most resources on those cases, which means that the police will dedicate more attention to more serious crimes, that the police will respond to anything the public perceives to be a threat, and that the police will receive the most serious repercussions for overstepping legal and procedural boundaries on those cases, further reinforcing their reluctance to prosecute cases with insufficient evidence for conviction.

The police will not find your TV because they have better things to do. There are violent crimes which they're heavily pressured to solve with greater frequency, not to mention the fact that the amount of resources necessary to invest into finding your TV greatly outweighs the worth of your TV. The government has priorities. If you live in the suburbs, however, where crime is generally much more heavily outweighed by law enforcement than in cities, you may actually recover your property, but don't count on it. The fact that a criminal must be shown to have actually stolen something as minor as a television, however jarring it is to your sense of property, nearly eliminates your ability to ever have stolen property recovered. Even if your stolen property is intangible in nature, such as through embezzlement, the likelihood that your complaint will result in prosecution is still slim as your complaint may be dismissed simply as sloppy bookkeeping, or the perpetrator may evade investigation by covering his or her traces well. That's all there is to it. The police and judiciary are institutions completely out of your control, and are still reeling from the massive increase in crime per capita that accompanies industrialization.

But there's something more insidious that accompanies this trend. Why do you think crime increases when people become more impoverished? The explanation is simple: the perception of economic inequality directly produces the incentive to destroy that inequality, although naturally you're pitted against the same forces that create the inequality, which, by fortunate chance, happen to be the same forces in charge of the government. So we create a cycle of impoverishment, crime and subsequent discrimination - not to mention that convicted felons are denied a political opinion (no taxation without representation?). A country only becomes industrialized by the collective capitalist effort, but at what cost?

The rising crime rate for industrial and so-called post-industrial nations simply cannot be matched by the resources of law enforcement - if anything, 'law' enforcement fuels crime by creating the schema for multinational corporations to claim your entire life. We're all fucked. Now, why don't you stop worrying about crime and go order yourself some pizza slathered in fat to share with your ugly hick family. The fact that you have 6 goddamn kids just means that there's just more people trying to rob me. Go cry about your lost civil rights into your Rolex, you bourgeoisie pig.

                               
                   M                    
                 ,MMN                   
                DMMMMMN?                
             IMMMNNMMMMMMMNMMZ          
           OMMMMD =8M8DNNNNNMMMN.       
         DMMNOMN.  .MM=      .NMM~      
       IMN8,ZMM.   .DMD        IMN+     
      8MMNMMMM.     ~DMZ        8M7     
     ~MM 7MMMMMMMMD=.,MN+       $MN     
     7MN NM8. =NDMMNNO8M+       IMN     
     .MMMMD           $MN.      ?MZ     
      MMM8            ~NM+      DM+     
    MMMNMZ            ?MM.     ?MM      
       ..NMM,         .DMN    +MM?      
          DDMM~        MMM  NMM       
           .8NMM8       .  NMNO        
              +DMMMNI. .IMMMO           
                 =8MMNNMMNZ