They don’t pay cops to think. In fact, I don’t think they even pay cops to recover stolen bikes.
In america at least cops can’t have an IQ that’s too high or they won’t get the job. They want people smart enough to do the capitalist class’s bidding but dumb enough not to question anything.
No they don’t care. It’s why bike thieves are such assholes, there’s barely any money to be made off it at massive inconvenience for the bike owner but they do it because they know 99% no one comes after them.
If this is Cambridge in the UK, both times I reported a bike theft, they confidently told me that they recover and return most stolen bikes. They absolutely do not recover or return most stolen bikes. Bike theft is so rarely sorted out by the police in Cambridge that nearly no one bothers reporting it as everyone knows their bike is gone forever, even if they parked it in good view of a CCTV camera and the frame was engraved with contact details all over.
