HN probably won’t like this, but facial recognition might be solution here. When a thief steals something from a shop or damages property window, the cashiers

HN probably won’t like this, but facial recognition might be solution here. When a thief steals something from a shop or damages property window, the cashiers can’t (and shouldn’t) try to stop them. But they can get a video recording of the evidence. If they upload the recording to a shared database, other security cameras can recognize the criminal and match them with other crimes. In theory, if someone accidentally steals $3 of goods or something it’s not worth doing anything, so normal people shouldn’t be affected by this. I imagine repeat offenders commit the majority of petty theft and they would be the targets: the recordings would be used to stack up charges and figure out their patterns, and eventually police would be pre-alerted to catch them in the act. In practice I have no idea. But considering how much companies spend on security systems, and petty theft is a real issue, I bet some are looking into this kind of thing.