Burglary clean up rates were never high because the only ways to detect a burglar are to catch them in the act, forensics, and catching them with stolen propert

Burglary clean up rates were never high because the only ways to detect a burglar are to catch them in the act, forensics, and catching them with stolen property. Once the burglar has left the property they might, if they are sufficiently careless and unlucky, have left a usable fingerprint behind. However if you wander around a house without gloves randomly opening drawers and cupboards the odds of a good print are still only about 10%. DNA might be better, but only if you spend a lot of money getting DNA profiles of everyone who has been in the house and comparing them to lots of profiles from random hairs and bits of skin. A minor domestic burglary doesn't warrant that expenditure. So that leaves possession of the stolen goods. However this is not easy to prove, and burglars can make it harder by stashing the goods somewhere for a while in a way that makes it harder to tie the burglar to the goods, or in simple cases claiming to have bought it second hand in good faith. Even when the police manage to demonstrate that the property is stolen they may not be able to tie the property to a specific burglary, or prove that the person in possession was the actual burglar, leaving the original burglary unsolved.