Car theft is rather more policed because a 2-ton 100mph+ car can easily kill or cause a lot of damage in the wrong hands.
Bike theft is down there with shoplifting or recreational drug use when it comes to policing priorities. But when a bike is stolen, often a person is losing an important means of transportation, so perhaps it should be taken more seriously.
Not going to happen in a ‘soft on crime’ society, though.
I propose, somewhat tautologically, that the primary reason why car theft is generally well policed (in USA, where my lived experiences have primarily been) is that it's generally a small enough problem for most police departments to get their arms around because of basic anti theft technology.
I believe the Kia/Hyundai debacle of the last few years supports this idea:
> So far this year, Minneapolis police have received 1,899 Kia and Hyundai theft reports, nearly 18 times the number for the same period in 2022. [1]
I don't think this is a "soft on crime" question. As you say, bikes are a low priority. But bikes were long considered a low priority in things like road design. The lack of bike lanes isn't getting better because people are getting tougher on crime. It's because we're getting rid of some of the classist nonsense that treats people able to afford cars as more important than those who couldn't. And also because bike commuting has become a middle- and upper-class phenomenon.
It may be that car theft is more policed because of political pressure from insurance companies, and because cars were typically more valuable than bikes.
Fighting car theft lowers insurance rates. But virtually nobody insures a bike.
Bike theft is down there with shoplifting or recreational drug use when it comes to policing priorities. But when a bike is stolen, often a person is losing an important means of transportation, so perhaps it should be taken more seriously.
Not going to happen in a ‘soft on crime’ society, though.