First, if police don't try to track down all theft, then there is going to be favoritism. Hope you contributed to the ball!
Two, If there is no meaningful way to attain redress, you invite vigilantism.
Side note: My concern (that is hopefully untrue and insane) is that, with demonstrations of police impotence (ie: Uvalde) and politicians talking about the recent raid, there is going to be more people who will take the law into their own hands.
They're really not there to protect and serve. That was a LAPD marketing motto that a ton of other police departments adopted over the years for optics. The police actually have no such legal duty, and this has been upheld in court multiple times.
I am 100% on your side, but in good faith we cannot expect the police to serve us. Your "first/two" analogy is moot I'm afraid.
Statistically speaking, would that make any difference though?
Sometimes pursuing crime does have an effect.
Triaging crime doesn’t necessarily mean favoritism. You can have set criteria you use to determine which crimes you investigate and how much time you spend on each.
I.e. have "personal support" division where one can pay per hour to solve small (non violent) problems, such as small-items recovery, acts of vandalisms. Like private detective but with more rights and somewhat co-payed.
It probably wouldn't make any sense if the item in question would be of low value, but if payment for recovering airtagged belongings of 1000$ would be like 50$/h then probably it would be of value.
Yet, deep inside I feel it's a slippery scope into incorporating the police, and I'm not really fan of the idea.