Wally
Choose Your Words Carefully...
Part of the problem is the legal cost of false arrests - you get sued if you don't do it right,I hear of so many stores that won't let employees do anything to stop shoplifters. This is kind of surprising.
second is just the plain cost of prosecuting - lawyer fees have a poor ROI.
third is the penalties mean nothing, or there is no penalty.
Out in rural US, along with the guns are incinerators and acres of woods. Just the notion that thieves could just disappear helps establish a terror to crime.
And since governments will not carry out their directive from God, communities will find their own ways.
I sometimes wonder why the year round scarecrows look so.... fresh....