The sort of low-level thieves you're thinking off sold off their ill-gotten gains within a very short time for a fraction of their value, often in a direct trade for drugs. It would be very hard to justify the investment required to prevent that, track the route property takes through handoff networks, and recover it in a form the owner would accept. Given that society suffers from more serious crimes that's generally where effort goes, and that's the result of public demand.

People want to not pay a lot for police, they want them well trained and highly accountable, they want excellent 'customer service', and they want to defund the police all at the same time. Out of this incoherent mess of conflicting desires the compromise is to focus on crime prevention, fighting organized crimes, or crimes against people rather than property as the top priorities.