Crapshoot Justice

You come home after a hard day at work and discover your front door kicked in and several valuable items (T.V., stereo, laptop, etc...) are gone. You feel violated and even terrified by what has happened. What should you do?
In our crap shoot justice system, you are expected to call the police, so the burglars might be caught, and justice served. There are many theories that support this course of action, such as; that catching the criminals (and locking them up) will stop them from being able to commit more crimes. We also rationalize that the punishment will somehow discourage other would-be criminals from violating the law once they learn about the potential consequences. Then of course there is always the retribution itself, which makes us feel better.
But in truth, none of these theories hold water. The criminals eventually get out of jail, or prison, and typically end up committing more crimes than they would have if they had never been caught (this bears out statistically). Other “would-be” criminals are actually incouraged by the thrill and danger that the possibility of getting caught provides. Tougher punishments have historically resulted in more, not less crime (with few, but highly touted, exceptions). And the retribution is of course just another word for vengence, and we all know where that leads.
So what can we do? We can't just ignore the crime and let the violator run free, can we? Or, can we? What if we did?
Most burglaries are committed by immature people (under the age of 25). That means that if we leave them alone there is a good chance that they will “grow up” and become responsible member of society all by themselves. You never hear about all the criminals who don't get caught and end up becoming very law conscious citizens over time (usually a few years). You may think that's ludicrous, but once again, statistics bear me out.
Consider that, in areas of the world with practically no crime, such as rural China, there is also practically no law inforcement. Sociologists have known for a long time that the hands-down best deterent to crime is a close knit community. Even in America, the best crime prevention/reduction programs are the ones that emphasize community integration, and re-integration of the criminals back into the community. These programs are proven to work, and the cost-benefit analysis is astonishing as well. But the “justice system” itself is the primary opposition to these programs, both in the polls and on the streets! (For example, by pushing for longer sentences that only increase the length of time a criminal is kept seperated from society while increasing the chance he will commit more crimes when released.) That is, of course, because the justice system needs crime to survive, and there are no official mechanisms to check it's appetite for criminals. It is a “beast” that only appears to control crime as it consumes criminals, then blames the fowl smelling excreta that oozes out its other end on the criminals that it feeds on. I know, because I was once excreted from the system's ass. So when I hear a cop or some other “official” refer to me as a “piece of shit”, I just smile and say, “exactly”.